Donnie's Place

[Gambit]

(( move from: Gambit's apartment ))

By the time they made it to the place in Queens, it was already sunny morning. Gambit stopped the bike near a house, looking it over with a skeptic glance. He put the foot stand down, allowing the bike to stand, and got off, walking to the door. He knocked and waited, then looked around at Shade. She was still invisible. "Psst," he waved his hand at her. "You can stop now."

[Shade]

When Gambit told her to hide there was usually a good reason for it, therefore Shade had remained invisible all the time. Using her powers on herself was not draining, so that didn´t matter and she let them slip when he said she could. There had been time during the ride to regenerate, so she didn´t look too exhausted.

She looked around. She didn´t know the area and the building didn´t exactly look like a hotel or something, so she was wondering where they were exactly. Climbing off the bike, she stretched a little to losen up her muscles that had become a little stiff. "Where are we?" she asked, chosing that question to go first because it promised a short answer, unlike the lengthy one that would hopefully come later to answer ´Who were they?´

[Gambit]

"Queens," Gambit replied.

In the next moment, the door opened, revealing a large and tall black man behind it. He was taller than Gambit and much older, too. He studied Gambit's face for a few second, then raised a brow. "What, you Cajuns don't sleep in the morning or what?"

"I know, I'm an asshole," Gambit agreed, and thus the exchange of hello's was basically over. "I need a place to stay."

[Shade]

The bike was not parked too far away from the door, so for now Shade just stayed where she was, watching the conversation since hopping off to join Gambit in an ´Hi, I´m Shade and me too.´ was not exactly what she understood of tact. The man who opened the door was a stranger to her and she immidiately started to wonder who he was: a friend of his? A relative? (since apart from Henri she had never seen any of his relatives) Or a fellow thief? She pushed off those questions to be dealt with later and leant against the bike, her hands propped against the seat.

[Gambit]

"Ah," Donnie nodded. He studied Gambit again and then looked at Shade. "Her, too?" he asked.

Gambit glanced back at Shade. "No," he said. "She'll be off soon."

"I see," Donnie nodded again. "Well, let's go," he turned around and disappeared inside the house. Gambit hopped down the stairs and walked over to Shade, taking his bag from her. Then he headed into the house.

[Shade]

It wasn´t too surprising a thing to hear him say, since Gambit had never gotten her involved with his ´business´ - and she guessed it had to be something along those lines going on there since the only sense she could make of things right now was that something had probably gone wrong during or directly after the heist that had set those guys from earlier on his tracks.

She readjusted her duffle bag when he took his - which was the heavier one - and followed Gambit inside giving the stranger a brief nod before she had a look around, trying not to make it look too curious. They had been driving a while and her heartbeat had slowed down to calmer again, still not all of her anxiety was gone.

[Gambit]

They didn't go too far inside the house. Donnie opened a door in the floor and went downstairs into what seemed to be the basement floor. Gambit followed him inside, feeling a sting of pain in his side now as he tilted his body slightly to be able to go down the steep staircase.

Donnie switched the lights on; the room was divided into two parts, it seemed, with the one to the right being a maintenance room of the house, partly a workshop, and the one to the left was behind a locked door. Donnie opened it and let Gambit inside the small room. There were two windows on the ground level near the ceiling. Gambit switched the lights on and waited until Shade came inside as well.

[Shade]

Had she not been with Gambit, Shade would probably never have followed a stranger into an underground room, because, mutant powers or no, there were some things that didn´t sound like a good idea just because. But Gambit she trusted, therefore she didn´t argue about it.

Most of the light in the room was artificial and Shade wondered whether the place was used regularly or whether it usually was what it was right now: a hiding place.

[Gambit]

Donnie followed them inside while Gambit studied the room he knew well. Nothing had changed since his last visit: several shelves with all sorts of useful and useless stuff that basements usually held, a chair and a desk, a fan on the ceiling, a small couch, huge stacks of old newspapers and a model of a three-master about two feet high in a lonely corner of the room.

While he was looking around, Donnie opened a cupboard and put a metal box on the table. Gambit glanced at it. "Got any anesthetic?" he asked. "Etidocaine," Donnie replied. "Will do," Gambit nodded. At that, the large man left the room, finally leaving Gambit and Shade alone. The Cajun walked to the couch and threw his bag on it, sitting down.

[Shade]

The mention of anesthetic didn´t exactly make her feel that great. She had been wondering earlier whether she had seen Gambit wince or if that had just been her overtaxed imagination tricking her and she couldn´t have been sure since she had not seen the whole fight and merely hoped he had gotten out unharmed. Gambit could take more than her, still that had kept her a little worried. Anesthetics probably didn´t mean a mere punch.

She walked over to where he was and sat down next to Gambit, feeling quite some of her anxiety drop off her as she did so. There were tons of questions she meant to ask but they would have to come one by one. Most important stuff first: "You okay?" she asked. He probably was not, but she meant to determine the grade of okay with her question first of all.

[Gambit]

Gambit decided to leave the question hanging as the answer would show itself, to him as well, some moments later. He started to drag his trenchcoat off. "Are you?" he asked instead, glancing at Shade.

[Shade]

Shade refused the urge to roll her eyes and insist on the answer to her question first, but figured she would see herself sooner or later.

She nodded. Truth be told, she was still feeling somewhat shaken, a feeling that was slowly subduing now that she believed them to be safe, but physiclly she was fine. There had been no stray bullets, luckily. "Yeah." she said. "a little shaky, but that doesn´t matter." What mattered was they had gotten away.

[Gambit]

"Well, mebbe it does, howdja know?" Gambit smirked. He dropped the trenchcoat next to him onto the couch and, raising his right arm in front of him, started to undo the clasps on the armored sleeve with his left hand. "If you're shaky, means you're in shock, minor or major, don' matter. So if ya go all ggghhhnnnbwaagh on Gambit," he imitated some sort of epileptic seizure and choking, "I'd know what happened." The sleeve was torn in one place, where the protection was the thinnest, and smeared with blood, but Gambit knew there was no bullet inside, he simply needed to see how bad the wound was. He hated stitches with passion.

[Shade]

"Either that," Shade said, refering to his mention of a possible shock, "or my powers are bitching around." Which would not be too surprising as she had never vanished anything as big as the bike, even though minor shock could definitely not be ruled out either since what they had been through since leaving the apartment wasn´t actually what she understood under some nice start of a day. "So if it´s the second, you´re talking permission for me going all bogus."

She wasn´t actually in a joking mood as someone who didn´t know her well might have assumed at her latter words, but more in a kind of mood where she was compensating for anxiety like this. When Gambit removed his sleeve however, she couldn´t suppress a slight hiss. "Gee..." she said, moving a little closer, her tone a mix of reproach and barely upheld nonchalance when she continued. "and you´re worrying about me."

[Gambit]

"I never said I was worried," Gambit corrected her. "Even if I was. I just asked for an update." He pulled the sleeve away and, studying the wound, reached for the metal box, putting it on his knees and opening it with his left hand. The bullet went along his lower arm, ripping the tissue and tearing skin in an uneven fashion. He considered whether he could patch it up by himself without damaging his muscles, though he usually healed well enough. "Are ya good wit' sewing?"