Premiere: Cab Quarrel [Paige, Bobby]

[Iceman]

[after the premiere]

"I know I already said this, but...what a douche."

It was, indeed, the third or fourth time Bobby had made a similar comment since they'd hailed the taxi from the theatre. Bobby hadn't realized how insane things had become outside the theatre, and though the police kept the journalists and camerapeople back, Bobby and Paige had had cameras and microphones thrust in their faces and questions yelled over each other, in hopes of getting a comment. And it wasn't just teen magazines that were there anymore. The panic had drawn the eyes of national news networks and newspapers.

"I hope you broke his nose - why would he...what a creep."

There was a pause, then Bobby's head swiveled and he looked at Paige. "But you're okay, right?" he asked with a tint of concern to his tone and his features. She hadn't seemed to be hurt, but he wanted to make sure.

Paige had changed into Alison’s robe after the chaos had subsided- as much fun as it would have been to run around naked, she figured the cops wouldn’t take kindly to it. She really was going to have to figure out a way to keep a uniform on, or at least around to change into.

She smiled a bit at Bobby, and leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder. “Yeah, I’m fine… I hope Alison’s going to be okay. Her career and all. You know… I really am surprised at how people reacted.”

The interviews with the police had forced her to lie, just a little- she hoped the guy wouldn’t press charges for the tap on the nose she gave him, but it would be just her luck she’d get hauled in on assault or something stupid like that.

“I just thought… things were better off than that. I mean you couldn’t get a much better mutant-friendly crowd than what they had there… and look how chaotic things got at the mere mention that a mutant MIGHT have hurt someone?” She sighed. “It’s disappointing.”

Bobby nodded, his expression bothered. He, too, was disheartened by the entire thing, most of all the crowd’s reaction. “I mean, I figured most of them were just there to look mutant-friendly, but…” He sighed, leaning his head against the top of Paige’s.

He, more than anyone, knew how hard the investigation was going to be for Alison. There was no way to prove what her powers were – no way that the officials would take as definite truth, anyway. His optimistic side told him that the officials had found out that Emma Frost was a mutant, so they could somehow find for themselves that there was no way Alison could have hurt Eric Beale. But those had been Men In Black-types from the government. The scene may have caused chaos, but it wouldn’t go any farther than the NYPD. “And you know, I’m sure they’ll get Beale to admit he was lying. But…Hollywood never really cares about the truth, so…I just hope she doesn’t lose the singing thing.” She was a nice girl, even if she had used the X-Men somewhat for fame.

[Iceman]

Bobby changed subjects slightly, his tone growing questioning. “So…when she announced she was a mutant…that was because Beale was trying to blackmail her?” He was still a little fuzzy on the details.

“I don’t know,” she said, sounding skeptical. “It sounded to me like for whatever reason, she decided to make the announcement that night because of the premiere and all. I mean, it’s a great time to come out and all. Made it a little more personal. It just makes it even more confusing why she’d have invited us along. It makes it seem like we supported the whole thing, like we knew and we were there to be part of the whole confession and all.”

“But you know… even if I do feel weird about it. I don’t think I’m going to say that to the press, if I end up doing an interview about it later. I just don’t think that’d be right to Alison. I’m not going to call her integrity as a person into question, you know? It doesn’t really have anything to do with her being a mutant. I think maybe we should try to be supportive of that angle, at least publically.”

“That is… if we even see her again.” Paige was quiet for a long time.

“Though I guess she’s dating Warren…” more silence. “…so we will.”

Bobby was ready to respond to other things Paige had said along the way, when her final comment threw him off the scent. “Really?” he said, in a way that was half question, half statement, and obviously surprised. In the moments after, he grew slightly hurt at the idea that Warren hadn’t told him. Was we really confiding in Paige more than he was in Bobby now?

But he pushed the thought aside. Warren had never been the type to keep quiet about a relationship – come to think of it, Warren didn’t get into things one could really call a ‘relationship’ very often. “Did he say that?” Bobby asked, lifting his head some and turning it to look at her, careful not to move his shoulder, which was serving as her headrest.

She looked up at him. “Well… he keeps telling me it’s nothing serious, but I could kinda... tell. She’s really into him. And it seems to me, Warren’s not really the type to hang out with a girl who wants something more from him. And told me he’s let her know he’s not looking for anything exclusive... but there he is with her. Telling me over and over that he’s only there to help her out. Since when does Warren do anything with a –girl- purely to be nice?”

Paige looked forward again. “It just doesn’t match up. And maybe I’m hoping. Cause if she’s just using him, as attractive as it is, I’ll smash her pretty face into the floor.” There was an odd sincerity to Paige’s words.

Bobby didn’t doubt that Paige would do it, either. He just hoped he could be present if she ever did smash another person’s face in.

And yeah, maybe he did hope there was mud and bikinis involved.

He did have to disagree on one front, though. “I think Warren does a lot just to be nice. He can’t possibly want to bone every female he meets.” Or could he? Bobby continued despite his doubts, “I don’t know if he likes her or not – I mean, obviously, he likes her on some level, or he wouldn’t be spending so much time with her. But I don’t know if there’s any…potential for something more than a hit and run…” Bobby smirked, and laughed a few short laughs at his own choice of words.

It didn’t last long, though. He could feel the thought coming, but it was like a train – impossible to stop in time. ’Like we had…’

Dangit, he’d gone there. Now he had to struggle to pick himself back up from hitting himself in the chest, pulling the momentary troubled look from his face as quickly as it appeared. “I heard her telling the cops that Beale pretty much declared his love for her and tried to blackmail her, saying he’d tell everyone she was a mutant if she didn’t do Lord-knows-what with him. I’m pretty sure she said that was why she told everyone. And…she’s an actress, of course, but I don’t know…she looked pretty upset.” Bobby didn’t like to think that anyone would put so much heart into such a serious lie, but then, he’d been proved wrong before.

[Iceman]

“Well that sucks for her…” she meant it too. That would be a bad place to be in. “I don’t feel so bad for slugging that guy then.” Paige smirked.

Sighing and closing her eyes, Paige slipped her hand into Bobby’s. “It was nice coming here with you Bobby.” She squeezed his hand. “Kind of sad, but I’m really glad we’re still friends.”

Bobby responded somewhat smoothly, nodding. “Yeah…me too.” He turned his head to look at her again. “You’re a great girl.”

But inwardly, Bobby couldn’t help but feel the familiarity of the way things were right then – how close they were sitting, hand in hand, her head on his shoulder. The only difference was that they weren’t dating. He couldn’t just kiss her forehead right then, even though he wanted to.

“So…you and Warren really clicked, huh?” He was almost ninety percent glad for that. He was pretty sure that he hadn’t been bumped down a notch on Warren’s list of friends. Maybe it was something about how close one of his best friends seemed to his very-recently-exed-girlfriend (who was another of his closest friends as well, but still an ex he still cared for very much).

She smiled. “Warren’s a great friend. He was really there for me while you were away. And I think we see things really similarly.”

Then she paused. “You’re jealous, aren’t you.” She sat up, looking at him. But who would he be more jealous of, Warren because he was close to Paige, or Paige because she was close to Warren?

This could get sticky.

For Pete’s sake—the woman was psychic. Blinking like a deer in headlights, he shook his head robotically. “No!” he argued – but something about the way he said it didn’t have the right tone to it.

Paige smiled a bit, blushing.

“Bobby…” she said softly, and looked at him for a long time. “I’m not going to tell you I haven’t thought about dating Warren.”

She bit her lip. “But we’re just friends. We’re only friends. And I think that’s all we’re ever going to be.”

“But… I mean, we’re both going to end up dating other people someday, right?”

Bobby’s response spoke volumes, even though it was only a look. Because it was a look that he directed from her eyes, down her form a ways, though it was clear he wasn’t checking her out, nor even focusing on what he was looking at. He turned his head slightly until it wasn’t facing her so much as it was facing ahead, hanging forward some. His gaze came to a stop low on the seat in front of him. It was only a few moments, but he couldn't think of the right words to say, since denying it seemed pointless and he didn't honestly want to deny it.

[Iceman]

Ah, hell.

Paige didn’t say anything, biting her bottom lip again, and looking out the window. The car was quiet for a long time.

“We do really good on the surface Bobby,” she said softly. “But where it counts, we just don’t match.” How long would it take to get back to the mansion? She could feel her face burning.
The thing was, nobody else seemed a good match either. And those she’d thought were, didn’t think the same thing back.

“Yeah,” Bobby said, ducking his head for a moment and looking at his shoes, just to have something to focus on, to look like he was doing something other than thinking. “So I hear.” The way he said it, it didn’t come across as bitter. It was just clear that he didn’t necessarily feel it himself.

But he hated to make situations awkward – and he didn’t think he could handle the current situation becoming any more awkward than it already was. He lifted his head, turning it to her, and said gently, “Nah, just forget about it. Things are going good…like this.” Being friends could have been a much harder thing to do, after all.

Paige didn’t say anything, staring out of the car. She was trying not to cry, feeling hollowed out from the inside. Doing this friends thing wasn’t going to work, she could feel it. “You know Bobby, if you disagreed with the breakup, you might have acted for two seconds like you gave a shit when I brought it up to you.”

Dammit – how did things go so downhill so quickly? The premiere disaster hadn’t been personal enough, so he’d had to get into a row with Paige before the day was through. As usual, Bobby immediately regretted saying anything to upset Paige. “I didn’t want to make things any harder. Which is all begging and complaining would have done,” he said, keeping his voice level as he looked at her, though she was refusing to look at him. “It would have just made you feel worse, wouldn’t it have?” He paused, looked away from her with a slight shake of his head.

“And maybe I do agree with you – maybe we don’t work out together. But you see more of that than I do. Which, you know…is probably ‘cause I’m more of the problem than you are. Which doesn’t surprise me.” There was a slight edge of self-distaste to what he said, which reared it’s ugly head at times when it’s more frequent brother, ‘lack of self-confidence’, was feeling particularly nasty.

“It just sucks that we didn’t realize it before,” he added, as much to himself as it was to her.

Paige winced. Didn’t Bobby think before he spoke? “Thanks…” she whispered, trying not to take it as more of an insult than he meant it.

“Bobby, I can’t make you happy. That’s the long and short of it. You’re looking for something different. I am looking for something different. It’s just…” she sighed.

“I’m sorry Bobby.”

Bobby shook his head, looking back to her face – or what of it he could see. “C’mon, don’t be like this,” he coaxed. “It’s not your fault. It’s just the way it is. If I can’t make you happy, I can’t make you happy. It’s no one’s fault.”

How he pulled off the last part of what he said to her with the peaceful smile he did was a mystery even to him, because it was like a shot to the heart and a splash in the face with cold water at the same time. It hurt, but he finally realized it was true. They didn’t make a good couple. So the smile he wore as he said it was still a mask for now, but maybe soon enough it would be something he could accept without feeling hurt by it.