Jessica & Gabriel

[x-velocidad.livejournal.com]

Jessica tries to apologize to Gabriel for some of her behavior during the Phoenix-sparked apocalypse. Gabriel is himself, which is to say: Personalities conflict.

Gabriel had missed the gym.

It wasn't like he'd stopped working out since the world fucked up. Crunches and squats and things were easy enough to do in the comfort of his room, and he'd been running when the weather allowed, since that was a pretty solitary pursuit. But he wasn't much for people in the wake of the world's rebirth, and a workout room in a mansion full of heroes and spies tended to be full of them.

But enough time had passed. And now, he was so determined to go back to lifting that he didn't mind any potential run-ins. At the moment, he was easing back into strength training, working with lighter weights as he jammed along to Sleater-Kinney on his iPhone. After a set of bicep curls, he put the weights down and sat on a nearby bench for a breather.

Jessica stepped into the gym, scrunching her nose at the smell. It wasn't a place she liked to go to often, but she'd found herself with a bit of extra energy and she wanted to make sure she was in shape for teaching the Gen X kids. God knew they were going to keep her on her toes. She noticed that, for once, the place was pretty empty. Jessica's eyes wandered over to a man lifting light weights nearby. Her brain took a few moments to identify the face, but she eventually placed it. She believed that his name was Gabriel, a time manipulator if her notes were correct. The battle against the Dark Phoenix flashed through her mind, and Jessica remembered how harsh her words had been during the battle. She decided that the adult thing would be to apologize, as much as it killed her. She walked briskly toward the other man, easily lifting the enormous 1 ton weights that sat near the rack. She curled it easily with both arms before she casually leaned over to Gabriel.

"Hey, you're Gabriel right?" She asked.

Gabriel had eyed her coolly as she approached, resisting the urge to turn up the volume on his earbuds to avoid conversation. Of the many things from the hellish onslaught that stuck with him, his unpleasant interaction with her had been one. That she was essentially asking him to reintroduce himself wasn't a point in her favor, because who couldn't remember someone's name after battling the apocalypse next to him. (Then again, that was the kind of thing he probably would have let it go if she hadn't called him Speedy Gonzales.)

"Yeah." He popped the headphones out of his ears but kept his now-characteristic emotionlessness. "That's me."

"Hey, I don't know if you remember me, but the name's Jessica. And, well, I just wanted to say...that I was sorry. You know, for calling you 'Speedy Gonzales' during the...well, you know. It was pretty shitty of me. I was kinda just running on adrenaline and rage, it just sorta slipped out." Jessica explained. "Not an excuse, just context." She added with a small smile as she pulled the one ton weight up past her chest.

"Yeah," Gabriel shrugged, watching her handle the weight with ease. "Well." He stood, grabbing the water bottle he'd placed on the floor and heading toward the nearby water cooler. "There were a lot of feelings flying around." It wasn't a reprieve, although he certainly understood. "Some of us are better at grace under pressure, I guess."

"So why don't we start fresh? Hi, Gabriel, I'm Jessica Jones. Private eye and occasional bitch with a minor in assholery. Nice to meet you." She replied with a grin.

Gabriel stopped at the water cooler, his back to her as he filled the bottle back up. He tried his best not to raise an eyebrow while he was remotely in her eyesight. "Yeah," he said rather matter-of-factly. "Nice to meet you." That rubbed him the wrong way. Everyone wanted to hit the reset button on their life, and he just... couldn't. "I'm Gabriel Cohuelo. Latino speedster." He paused. "But then you already knew that. Ándale, ándale, arriba."

"You forgot to mention your Master's in passive aggressive." She stated jovially, before her face went completely deadpan. "Ass."

"Really that passive? Guess the last few months softened me." He took a sip of his water bottle, then finally turned to face her. "Don't have much to say to people these days." He appraised her for a second. "Didn't think that was much of a secret after everything."

"Look, that whole... thing we went through was hard. I get that. I was there too." She answered as she set down the weight she was holding carefully. "I hardly think that's an excuse to make everyone else, especially those that weren't even there, feel shitty. I mean, I'm hardly a nice person. I'm not saying that, but at least I have the decency to try and be happy with what I have." She answered snappishly.

"Bully for you," Gabriel said flatly, doing his best not to meet her tone. After enough conversations with Namor, he knew this kind of evenness was more frustrating anyway. "I'm happy you're happy," he said after a second in a way that suggested how uninteresting he found that. "I am not. Sorry for the inconvenience that appears to be causing you."

"You think I'm happy? Take a look around, I'm the most broken piece of machinery in this place." She answered with a smirk as she gestured around the gym. "Everybody's been through a lot. It doesn't lessen your experiences or your feelings, of course, but it does mean that there are people to talk to. Even if we can't speak about... you know what, it doesn't mean we can't move on. Geezus, I'm trying to be nice and it's hard." She answered as she lowered her arms with a frown.

God, this was getting exhausting. She'd used the happiness line in the first place, and now she wanted to argue it. "Well," he said, his arms now crossed, "I'm sorry about that too, then. But I'm not much for talking, especially not—" Gabriel cut himself off before finishing that thought, because there wasn't much point to being mean. In another world, he might have admired Jessica's persistence. But that wasn't this world.

"Look," he finally added after a little bit. He meant to say it a little more gently, but gentle wasn't his forte these days. "We all went through the same thing, but we all went through it very differently. So if I'm not... 'moving on,'" he added finger quotes around those last two words, obnoxious as that was, "it's because I can't."

Jessica practically saw red. She was ready to pull her hair out.

"Fine, sit there and wallow in your heartbreak. I don't give a flying shit. Just don't expect me to walk on eggshells, got it?" She asked sharply.

"Not really sure you could, but I wasn't asking." Gabriel shrugged, staying cool in the face of whatever that was. Truth be told, this might have been the most he'd liked Jessica thus far. "So." He glanced around the weight room. Fuck it. He didn't care if she was pissed, but he could certainly do without an angry strong woman huffing in the corner. "Guess I'll leave you to it."
"You too." She ground out. This wasn't over.