om_main | Philip and Noriko - Backdated to September 21

Philip and Noriko do some spur-of-the-moment heroing, ish, in NYC.

Noriko was already on edge when they walked out of the squat. They'd run into one of her former dealers, who of course had offered her a few pills, and she had of course turned him down. The thing was, though, she would have liked to turn him down without Philip there, so that she knew for a fact that he wasn't the reason she had. That she wouldn't have said yes if there hadn't been a witness.

She was on edge, but it didn't show that much, because the streets were never safe, and there was always something to focus on. The tension was there in the back of her neck, but she didn't let it distract her. Which was a good thing, given the sounds of someone taking a beating were coming from a nearby alley. Flesh on flesh, a cry of pain, a metallic clang, and she shared a look with Philip before jogging quietly to the mouth of the alley, staying behind the corner and only quickly sticking her head around it to catch a look at the scene.

Philip, for his part, had affected polite disinterest in Noriko's meeting with the dealer. He'd made a point of looking bored, in fact, as though what she was talking about had nothing to do with him and the only reason he was there was to watch her back. Which, in its way, was the truth.

When the sounds started, he fell into step behind her and a little to the side, enough for unobstructed view but little enough that they didn't make up two entirely separate profiles. He didn't go to look in the alley either, instead, half turning to watch behind them. "Situation?" he muttered quietly.

"Three guys, one kid on the ground," she answered in a whisper. The kid was crumpled against a dumpster, and she hadn't looked long enough to know for a fact that he was really that much younger than the three assholes still standing on their feet, but he was still 'the kid' to her, because he was the one that needed help. She looked at Philip by her side, and warned him, although he probably didn't need the heads-up, "I'm going in."

"Don't worry about me," Philip said with a roll of his shoulders. "Just watch yourself, I've got your back." He'd stilled as he spoke, expression going hard and flat and very unlike himself. Time to make sure he knew what the hell he was doing.

If there was one person Noriko wasn't worried about, it was Philip. She nodded, and hoisted her backpack more securely on her back, shortening the straps so it wouldn't be knocking about when she moved. She had no intention of using the electricity, so there was no need to put the gauntlets on (and blow her 'cover'); that was what the combat training had all been for. With Philip as back-up, she really couldn't imagine needing to go Electro-Girl on the bullies.

She stepped right around the corner and into the alley, right as one of the three guys was tearing his bag out of the hands of their victim. He looked younger than them, for all that they all were teens, and that did nothing to appease Noriko's anger at them. "Give that back to him," she told them, a tiny, skinny Asian kid with electric blue hair and torn jeans.

They turned to her, saw just that, and snorted. "Or what?"

She kept advancing on them, though, and when only one of them stepped forward to deal with her, making a crack about what did she think she was doing as he made a grab for her, she dodged and punched him in the throat, swept his feet from under him and kept on moving towards the other two. There went the advantage of surprise, but none of the jackasses had been training with Puck, so she figured she still had the advantage anyway.

"You really should listen to her," Philip said mildly as he watched Noriko advance. The guy on the ground was gasping, more from the wind being knocked out of him from hitting the ground than anything, but he was breathing. Worst case, he'd have a spectacular black and blue on his neck.

He stepped up behind Noriko quickly though, there were two more and if they tried to jump her at once, no good would come of that.

If Noriko hadn't been so focused on the two guys still standing, she would have taken a moment to appreciate Philip's delivery. She knew some of what he could do; did a lot of guesswork to fill in the blanks; and even now, he let her take center stage and played the mild-mannered card. It wasn't surprising. It was... well, it was Philip for you. But right then, she mostly appreciated his words for giving her a fix on his location without needing a visual.

The guy who had been going through the kid's bag dropped it on the side of the alley, and, predictably, they both moved in on her. She took a hit to the ribs even as her knee found a crotch, but for all that it put one of them temporarily out of commission, the other one grabbed her as she tried to catch her breath and shoved her into the side of the dumpster.

Of course, if the idiots were paying attention to her, they weren't paying attention to Philip. The kid had only had a moment to have a hand on Noriko before Philip was on him. He kicked out, low, connecting with a shin right above the ankle. An open hand strike to the forearm had the kid turning just enough for Philip to fit his curved hand neatly under the other guy's jawline and shove down and back, driving him towards the ground.

The gauntlets in Noriko's backpack jabbed into her back when she collided with the dumpster, but she managed to take in a sharp breath... as she watched Philip take a guy out as easily as freakin' breathing, by the look of him. "Get going," she said, her voice rougher than usual.

The three guys seemed to hesitate, as they got to their feet, but decided to see reason and took off. Their would-be victim already had, grabbing his bag on his way; you didn't trust your saviors any more than your attackers, out here.

That they were all scampering didn't mean Philip was down off alert, you never know who would have been watching and why. "You alright?" he said to Noriko as he kept watch. She was up and breathing, she'd let him know if she needing attending to. It wasn't safe to divide his attention yet.

"I'm fine," Noriko confirmed; she didn't even think she'd gotten bruised ribs. She was hoping her gauntlets were fine too, though, but this was not the place to check them out. "Let's go."

"You first, if you don't mind," Philip said politely. It was both to watch her back, and to watch in general, he was a fair bit taller than Noriko was with the better field of view that entailed. He took a deep breath, then another, slowly settling back into his skin.

This was really not the sort of situation where Noriko minded going first, with everything that it entailed. She trusted Philip to have her back, anyway, and she could see trouble coming their way - if it came head-on. She walked out of the alley, her gait looking a lot more natural than it felt.

Philip had folded right back down in his 'nothing to see here' look. Or at least the one he used when he went on these little field trips with Noriko, his usual school camouflage would mark him as a target out here. "Anybody you recognized back there? Or are we taking this as reputation building?"

"The kid was in the squat earlier," Noriko replied, "but I don't know the three assholes." Her ribs still smarted slightly, but only when she breathed in deep. "Thanks," she added, with a glance at Philip by her side.

"Any time," Philip said with an honest to god grin. "It was worth seeing if I could actually pull that off. Though, speaking of which... if we could sort of keep that quiet back at the school."

It was difficult not to smile back at that grin, even for Noriko, and her lips twitched into an amused half-smile. "I'm not gonna start gossiping for your crazy skills," she assured him then. But she knew what he was saying, and she added, more seriously, "Not a word." She wasn't sure who he thought he was fooling at that point, but since she did not in fact gossip, she had no actual idea whether most of the other kids had noticed anything about Philip, or if his guy-next-door routine actually worked.

"Thanks," he said with a nod. "And yes," Philip said as the grin slide into a quirked little smile. "I know that it's getting more obvious, but there's a difference between speculating and knowing."

Noriko looked at him with narrowed eyes. "So you're one of the telepaths." Both a jab at how transparent she clearly was, and at the fact that she still didn't know what his mutation was.

"Oh good lord, no," Philip said with a shudder that was only partially exaggerated. "I'm not sure if I could think of something that would be worse. It seems like for every Betsy, there's an Ellie. It's not a judgement on how they are, I just know that I wouldn't want it."

Trust Philip to take that comment seriously, and Noriko gave him a look when he started talking, but simply nodded by the end. "I'll happily live without it, too. Give me a sec," she added, since they were far enough away by now, and not being followed that she could tell. She stopped in a side alley to swing her backpack in front of her and check that the hits had not damaged her gauntlets.

"Everything okay in there?" Philip asked. He wasn't looking at her as he did, he was keeping an eye out for their new friends, just in case.

"A couple fingers feel stiff, but hopefully it hasn't damaged their basic function," Noriko stated, after a few more seconds. She didn't need them yet, so she would get them checked out the minute she got back to the school. She closed up her backpack and swung it back onto her back. "I've been meaning to talk to them about that. They're not made for combat."

"That seems like a strange oversight," Philip said with a frown. "Not that they'd be made for combat specifically," he clarified. "But you wear them a great deal and any device is going to have wear and tear. You would think that they'd have tried to make them as durable as possible, or at least keep working on it."

"That was a pretty bad hit they took," Noriko replied as they fell in stride again. She was expecting to have a nice spatter of bruises herself. "And I'm not the only kid with a maladaptive mutation," she added, dropping her voice so only he could hear her. "Or the one with the worst deal. They're probably busy with other stuff."

"Then they need to delegate better," Philip said with a shrug. "As much as Stark irritates me, he is a genius, for example. I'm sure he could do something, you'd just have to keep him on a relatively short leash."

Noriko didn't really know the kid, and she frowned thoughtfully. "You'd trust him with something like this?" If he was in her position, she meant.

Philip just sighed, trying to put the thoughts into words. "Tony is... He's self indulgent. And a brat. And incredibly self absorbed," he started. "But he wouldn't hurt anyone on purpose, and if it was impressed on him firmly how important it was, I don't think he'd allow his technology to harm anyone."

"Where do you know him from?" As always when asking anything about Philip's life, Noriko half expected him to evade answering - or plain tell her he didn't want to answer the question, which she preferred. It was truer.

Philip rolled his eyes. There was no sense in evading, not when Tony talked about his mom every time it came up. "My parents did some work for the Starks years ago. I got detailed to keep an eye on Tony. I was eleven, he was ten and it went about as well as you'd think it would. I was a very mature eleven year old and... well, Stark is Stark."

Noriko was silent for a few seconds, coming to a decision. "I'll talk to him." And make the actual decision then. She glanced at Philip again. "Will you teach me how you did that back there?"

"I'm guessing you mean what I did to that guy?" Philip asked. "That specifically, we'll have to see. That style's all about leverage, some of it you need more height for. But to keep yourself safer? I can definitely do that."

And it wasn't every day Noriko would end up fighting somebody shorter than she was; on the contrary. But she'd only meant that one move, really, and the offer to teach her more - something more long-term - was a surprise. She should probably turn it down, because spending time getting physical with Phil, even in a sparring kind of way, didn't sound like a very good idea (because it sounded like an excellent idea), but on the other hand, it seemed ridiculous to turn down that kind of offer because of a stupid crush. "I'd like that," she confirmed, because the more she learned the better.

"Let me know when you can work around your classes," he said. "I don't know if it helps," he continued, "But I do teach a couple of the others too. Not exclusively, of course, just some supplemental training, fitness, self-defense, that kind of thing. It turns out I like it a lot more than I thought I would." Because it was good, he thought, that he could use something he knew to help people out, no matter in what kind of way it was.

Noriko glanced at him again, a fugitive smile on her lips. She thought she knew what he meant; in a way, it was the same reason why she'd stepped out into that alley, earlier. The same reason why she always had, when it came to other street kids. "Contributing?"

"At least in part. And I hate the idea that someone might get hurt because I couldn't take the time to help them. I know I can't cover every scenario, but I can try to do as much as possible." Which really, when it came down to it, was why he'd stepped right up to spar with Laura. If he could survive her, he could survive almost anything he'd come across right now.

"Makes sense," Noriko agreed with a nod. She gave him an appraising nod. "You know, it wouldn't hurt you to have a flaw. Even just one." Manner of speaking - obviously.

"Of course I have flaws," Philip said with a frown. "If I've tried to pretend I don't and have been a jerk about it, I apologize. I'm just not used to being very social beyond the strictly casual."

"It was a compliment," Noriko told him, more amused than anything else, although it hardly showed. She liked his way of being social. Things mattered, with him, around him.

"And right there, the example of socially awkward." Noriko was easy to talk to though, Philip had to admit. She was a lot less flutterbrained than most of the kids he'd known before Xavier's. Then again, she had a lot deeper grounding in the serious than any of them had.

"You're not the first to get tripped by my deadpan," Noriko replied with a small shrug. Not that it was much of a flaw in him, not when he was so open to being corrected. ...ugh, could she be any more pathetic. She might've rolled her eyes at herself if she hadn't been afraid he'd catch it, and ask why.

"I'm a fan of deadpan myself," he said with a shrug. "I have to admit, I love that dawning look once a person figures out just what you said to them. I've also been told that my sense of humor is suspect, so there you go."

"I've been told I have none, so," Noriko replied, with a hint of a smile. It was absolutely not true, but her sense of humor was a lot more wry than a lot of people expected from a tiny sixteen-year-old girl.

"I like the ones that come from out of nowhere. It makes life more interesting," Philip said with a return smile.

"Like we need our lives to get any more interesting," Noriko shot back, a prime example of her kind of humor.

"There's always room for more interesting. It keeps body and mind sharp," Philip replied. "I can't think of much worse than life being boring."

"I can think of a lot worse," Noriko replied with a brief frown.

"Sorry, that didn't come out right. I meant as long as things were going okay. Obviously there's a lot worse out there," Philip said apologetically.

"No, I know," Noriko assured him immediately, her frown now aimed at herself more than anything else. "I just - jinxes, you know?" She wasn't a very superstitious person, but why tempt fate when you could do without it.

"Of course," Philip said with a hint of a smile. "So, did you want to go looking for more trouble or head back?"

"There's the squat a couple blocks from here," she offered, mirroring his expression. Not that they actually went looking for trouble - but they certainly didn't back away from it.