Above the East River (open)

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Pietro met Gambit’s eyes briefly and then studied the table for a split second, which was far longer to his sense of time. He was long accustomed to losing pool games; he had learned from Scott, and the man had an uncanny knack for geometry. Pietro had a knack for practical physics, but best applied to his own body mass; smaller objects were more difficult. Assessing the best shot he had, he readied his cue, aligned the white ball with the nearest solid, and shot. It bounced off the back wall with light force and went in the nearest side pocket. Not a bad start; it gave him a chance for another.::

[Gambit]

Gambit had never played with Pietro before, and so took a brief opportunity to make a judgment of the other man's ability to play, a bit of a forecast for himself about how the game could go. He wondered if fast movements and quick reaction meant success at pool. Now it was his chance to see for himself.

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Pietro surveyed the table again; Gambit had done a good job breaking, and Pietro's own balls were scattered. He had a fair shot at another for the corner pocket, and aligned, shooting and getting it in.::

[Gambit]

Gambit leaned slightly with one hand against the table edge, holding the cue in the other hand, as he watched Pietro's shot. "So what do you do generally, Pietro?" he asked. "When you ain't playing pool with half-strangers, that is."

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Pietro lifted his head from consideration of the table at Gambit's question.:: "I started the police Academy."

[Gambit]

Admittedly, this was one of the last possible answers Gambit expected to get. Nevertheless, he could appreciate the bit of irony in the situation, which he expressed by a small smirk and a barely noticeable shake of his head. "By way of the general callin' in life, or to pursue a more personal purpose?" he asked.

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Pietro looked up from the table again, for the moment putting aside consideration of his shot. People rarely questioned his motives, due to lack of interest on their part he had always assumed, coupled with how tight-lipped he was.:: "Both."

[Gambit]

Considering Gambit always questioned anyone's motives, as it could be helpful in calculating his own moves somewhere in the distant future, Pietro wasn't an exception here. To Gambit, this was just an ordinary conversation, triggered by his ever-present curiosity. "That's some solid ground ya got there," he remarked. "Are y'always' this determined about things you undertake?"

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Pietro was unused to that sort of attention regarding his choices in life and his motives. Others always backed off, either not interested or not willing to fight. Even Wanda's method was one of gentle patience, waiting for him to open up to her. The only person in recent memory to prod with questions was Samson.

That he was unused to this became evident in how he stopped trying to align his shot. If Gambit wanted to ask questions, it would take more of his attention, not in practice of shrugging them off and trying to play around them. More problematic was Pietro's inability to discern humor and sarcasm in tone, which made Gambit's phrasing somewhat mystifying.

Added to that was his feeling that he had not undertaken anything worthwhile in far too long, which had motivated him to apply to the Academy in the first place.:: "It depends on what it is."

[Gambit]

"Well, sho," Gambit said, taking a more casual stance since it became obvious to him that Pietro abandoned his shot in favor of keeping up with the conversation. Since Gambit so nothing so awfully entertaining in the conversation itself, he could guess (and guessing went along more easily when coupled with his near-dormant empathic powers) that the reason for Pietro's attention lay most likely in the fact that he was being asked about personal matters by an outsider. A question of one's motivation was, of course, a personal question.

Nevertheless, Gambit didn't use this guess to his advantage in order to start bombarding Pietro with carefully aimed questions to extract more and more and more information. He wasn't hunting, wasn't fishing for pieces he'd need for work; he was merely indulging his superficial curiosity, to the extent that wouldn't, as he saw it, damage anyone's interests.

Besides, he was equally interested in finishing the game. Disrupting it wouldn't go along with his plans of a nice relaxed evening.

"Everythin' always depends on something," he continued. "Does that mean some things ya pay your attention to need less 'f your determination than others?"

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Pietro set the cue down, let the bottom rest on the floor, and he held the body in his hand, such that it stood upright. It was awkward to hold the cue on the table when he was not shooting, preparing to shoot, or measuring; none of which he was doing at the moment. He was fallible, in that he could only do so much while keeping his privacy barriers intact.

The question made sense in one way, and not in another. Pietro assumed there was a language barrier, as Gambit had a thick accent, and he himself did not speak English flawlessly. Perhaps it was not that the question failed the language-meaning test, or that either one of them spoke in a prohibitive manner, but that Pietro could not imagine why the other man would have reason to ask the question he interpreted and assumed he had misheard or misunderstood. Or perhaps he thought too literally. It seemed evident.

He also had to remind himself not to become defensive, because Gambit did not mean to get under his skin; few people would tolerate a game of pool with Pietro to interrogate him about something about which they had been unaware prior to the game. Paranoid as he could be, he realized that.

So if he understood the question and the motives, and Pietro would not say that aloud, he had the following reply,:: "Isn't that part of life? Dolling out resources and attention in uneven amounts?"

[Gambit]

"It sure is," Gambit replied with a mild shrug. "Just like murders and sky-divin'. Don't mean everyone does it, though."

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Pietro was not the best man with whom to take a philosophical stance. His rigid way of thinking did not lend itself to analogy well, and comparisons were often lost to him depending on magnitude. Such was it now.:: "You think it's as rare as murders?"

[Gambit]

"More frequent than murders, let's put it that way," Gambit replied. "Was my question so vague or so unwelcome that you keep avoidin' the answer?"

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Pietro thought he had answered the question, which meant that it had been vague. When confronted, it was difficult not to grow defensive, though Samson had attempted to help him control that better. A "coping skill" he called it.:: "I'm determined enough."