Chapter Text
Ororo watched the scene unfold in Times Square. A performatively irritating MRD patrol was squaring off with the X-Men. There were never any mutants to respond to down there, save the occasional tourist who had been living under a rock. Everyone knew they had detection tech and weren’t afraid to use it, and so actual mutants went elsewhere. Down other streets, or through the subway station. About the only thing the Manhattan Mutant Response Division was protecting from the mutant threat was the TKTS booth, and there was an app for that now.
But still. Every few months over the last two years, the city’s resident mutant superheroes saw fit to remind them that they didn’t have free reign over the island. It wasn’t a terrible idea, knocking the MRD down a peg in a way that the public could witness. Even if she thought they were fools for being so public to begin with.
They presented themselves, starting with Cyclops. She did have a soft spot for him, all serious and prone to mumbling something about liberation theory when reporters were looking for a sound bite and a clue as to whether he was a hero or a villain. He exchanged some words with the lead MRD guy, who responded by pulling out his taser. They weren’t allowed guns, at least.
She cleared the skies so that the one with the feathers, Angel, wouldn’t get damp if the rain picked up again.
Kurt appeared next to her. She’d texted when she realized it was happening again and he said he’d be right there.
“Anything?” he asked. He’d brought popcorn this time, no doubt last night’s leftovers from one of his gigs. But appropriate to the spectacle of the moment.
She shook her head. “Nothing yet, but it’s hard to see from this angle.” They were on the roof of her office building, which she’d figured out how to get up to not long after she rented co-working space there. Not quite on the square, so not the best view.
“You could fly closer, if you wanted,” he said. “Or I could pop in and have a look.”
She rolled her eyes. “I am not flying out over Times Square in broad daylight. Especially not when they have their own flier. It’d be a mess.”
“Oh come now, Storm. You can keep him out of your way with a stiff breeze.” He wasn’t wrong.
Iceman disabled one by freezing his taser into the holster, then putting the man’s feet in a block of ice. The Beast stopped another from attacking with pure hand-to-hand fighting. He was getting better, she noticed. Not just relying on brute strength and speed. Iceman's target had left his shoes in the ice block and was now hopping around Time Square barefoot on the wet pavement, which wasn’t so much disabling the man as making him look like a fool. She enjoyed that, and so did the tourists; people had their cameras out. Angel swooped low and picked the third up to deposit him on a roof somewhere and then Marvel Girl came in to finish the job. They had parked their vehicle on the sidewalk because all cops (even volunteer militia squad cops) somehow love illegal parking. She lifted it up and put it back in a lane of traffic. Still illegal, but not blocking pedestrians on the crowded sidewalk; a net positive for people in the busy city center. And maybe now actual cops would tow it away. Marvel Girl tended to disable the cars when she had the chance, so it’s not like these MRD guys were going to drive off.
The crowd had gathered and was either cheering or getting agitated; it was hard to tell from this distance. She hoped it was positive.
“We’re going to have to deal with them some day,” Kurt said.
“I know,” she replied. “But I have enough on my plate for now.”