Ororo and Callisto | Monday evening

[x-storm.livejournal.com]

Callisto comes to talk to Ororo about a decision made over her head. To say she's not happy about it is an understatement.

It had not escaped Ororo's notice that Callisto had never sought her out for communication. On the occasions they'd interacted the instigator had invariably been her. It was unfortunate, then, that the first time Callisto had seen to fit to come to her should be under less than congenial circumstances.

Her office door burst open her first day back from Wakanda to make way for an incandescent Callisto.

"What the fuck did you think you were doing giving my name to those people?"

The silver-haired woman sat back, setting down the paper she had been perusing and raising her eyebrows. "Good afternoon, Callisto," she greeted the other woman. "Is there something I can help you with?"

"You gave my name to that shelter."

"Yes, well, I was leaving the country and they needed someone to contact in the case of an emergency." Ororo paused. "Was there an emergency?"

"If by 'emergency' you mean some thick-as-pigshit teenage mutant hero skinhead practically getting himself killed in a barfight, then yes, yes you could say that."

"I see. I did not anticipate anything actually happening... I am sorry to have caused you inconvenience. That was not my intention."

"What, exactly, was your intention?" the brunette asked through gritted teeth, her hands, for once not in her pockets, braced on the desk as she leaned over it, looming over Ororo.

"My intention," Ororo said calmly, "was to provide the name of a person I trusted to be able to handle whatever might arise in my absence, so that the mutants at the shelter would be watched over while I was away. It seems I chose wisely."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Were you able to handle the situation?"

"He just needed someone to tear him a new one. I scared the hell out of him. Ugly scars look cool until you point out how you got them."

"Well, then." The weatherworker sat back in her chair. "Perhaps you did even better than I would have, in that case. Congratulations." She hazarded a smile.

Callisto looked as though the top of her head might blow off. "That's not the point! You didn't even ask me!"

"Yes, I know, and I apologize for that. I did try and seek you out to mention it, but you were not in the garage when I came by, and my flight was leaving shortly thereafter..."

"You couldn't've left a note? You couldn't've... Fuck, that's not the point, the point," Callisto said, punctuating the word with a thump of her hand that Ororo felt resonate through both the table and the hardwood floor beneath her feet, "is that I'm not your lackey, I'm not your stand-in babysitter, and I told you already plenty of times that I don't want to be involved!"

Ororo's expression only grew more confused as Callisto went on, and when she stopped, the silver-haired woman had to wait for a moment to gather her thoughts into a coherent rebuttal. "Perhaps you don't understand... I did not give your name to the shelter so that you could act as my 'lackey'. I gave it because I trusted you, because I knew that you would do the right thing in dealing with them, and because I thought you would do a good job at handling whatever arose. I am sorry you feel I mistreated you... I swear that my intention was anything but that. I would never have entrusted something of that importance to a mere 'lackey'. Only to someone I trusted."

Callisto stared. Then blinked. Then straightened, frowning deeply. "I don't get it," she said. "Why me? Why am I suddenly trustworthy? What did I ever do to make you think I'm the second fucking coming to poor disaffected mutants? With all the smartass do-gooders in this place, why me?"

"You have never lied to me. Except, perhaps, to claim that you did not care about the sewer-dwellers," Ororo explained. "Perhaps you have forgotten, but I have trusted you from the beginning... when you came to me and told me about Sarah I believed you, and followed you. And you were right. Why would I doubt you now?"

"For someone who thinks so much about who she does and doesn't trust you're a lousy listener," Callisto observed. "I never said I didn't care about them. I said they didn't need or want my help. And I also said, repeatedly, that I didn't want this shit and yet somehow, you just keep on throwing it my way. Who the hell d'you think you are?"

"Someone who is just as stubborn as you, perhaps," came the answer. "Maybe you have been allowed to slip by thus far, doing just what you had to to exist, but I do not think you deserve that fate now that you are here."

"I didn't ask for a fucking life coach."

"Luckily, I do not charge."

The other woman was back leaning over the desk once more now, almost shouting again. "Of all the self-righteous, interfering, manipulati-"

"What are you afraid of?" Ororo cut in then, her voice low but commanding all the same. "Is it the responsibility? Are you afraid of failing them again? Because hiding your head in the sand is a much better alternative..."

Callisto's eyes narrowed at this, but she ignored the implicit insult - and the direct one. "Is that what this is about? You want me back out of here, running the Morlocks again, out of your hair? Am I not good enough for this place, is that it?"

With a short laugh Ororo was on her feet, staring the other woman down across the desk. "Goddess, no. Stay here as long as you like, just don't hide while you are at it. You are a leader, Callisto... I can see that about you, and I think it is a terrible waste for you to do what you are doing, hiding because of what happened in your past. I am not saying it was not terrible, and that you should not remember it for the rest of your life... but you did not die that day. Only you would not know that by listening to you."

"You just have to know best about everything, don't you? What would you know about me?"

"I know you because I know me!" Ororo replied, raising her voice for the first time in the conversation. "Callisto, I have felt these things too. I know how it is to feel guilt, and responsibility. I ask people I care about, people I love to put their lives in danger every day. I could just as easily hide from that, and spend my life doing nothing of consequence, attracting no attention, doing nothing worthwhile until I die. But I do not. And I do not think you should, either. You are better than that."

"Maybe I'm not, what the hell does it matter to you?"

"Are you offended that I think highly of you?"

"I'm getting there."

"Why? How is that possibly a bad thing?" Ororo asked, genuinely confused now.

"If you thinking highly of a person means you get to nag and insult them on a semi-regular basis I think you can stick it."

"May I point out that you came in here to nag and insult me?"

"Because you signed me up for that thing without even asking me!"

"And I apologized for that."

"And then proceeded to tell me I was a worthless, cowardly failure!" Callisto took another step forward, her thighs bumping against the desk between them as she squared off.

"I will not apologize for stating that I think you can achieve more. I see no point in excusing mediocrity when you are capable of much better," Ororo said archly.

"Don't fucking patronise me."

"Would you rather I did not care? Because if that is what you truly want, I will leave you alone. And you will not have to have any more responsibility than taking care of the Jeeps in the garage."

"Christ, you just don't get that not everyone wants to be a hero, do you?" Callisto's cheeks had grown a little pink, though whether it was from anger, frustration, or simply the physical exertion from maintaining said fury was anyone's guess.

"We do not always get what we want," Ororo replied, her expression changing to one of vague disappointment. "But you should always do what you can."

"Well, clearly you're just a better person than me. Huge achievement. Well, fucking done."

The weatherworker sank back into her chair, not caring that it put Callisto above her once again. "If you will take my words the wrong way there is nothing I can say to make you believe that is not what I meant. I was only trying to help."

"Well, the way I see it you're either trying to dump work on me, or trying to 'rehabilitate' me," Callisto snapped. "I didn't ask for either."

"Then I will ask no more favors of you," Ororo said wearily, holding up a hand. "I promise."

Callisto rolled her eyes. "I'll believe it when I see it," she said, turning and stalking out of the room as noisily as she'd left it, the door shutting behind her with a force just shy of a bang but enough to make the plant pots nearby rattle a little on their drainage-plates.

Well, Ororo thought, watching the orchid on her desk sway in the gust of wind from the slamming of the door, I could use another vacation.