milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

X slips into the main bar from her room in the Staff hallway.

The silence -- and lack of cats -- was worth not having to go back to Paris just yet.

Soon. When she is better.

In the meantime, she makes her way to a corner table, stopping briefly at Bar to order something for dinner.

Spaghetti is an old comfort food, and when combined with a root beer float it is one of the best.

Go figure.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There is soon a chimp in a suit and a deerstalker hat sitting next to X.

"Happy Cubefall." He's pretty it's X and not a holiday imposter. Who else would eat spaghetti and a root beer float?

X's nostrils flare slightly, and she unclenches her hands from where they have made themselves into fists.

"Hello."

Beat.

"You like it? Cubefall."

He did say 'happy', after all.

"It's a chance to try something new. Of my own free will. Temporarily. So I like it.

"I take it you don't." Pause. "You know who I am, right?"

"I am already something new."

This is the strictest truth.

"Charlie."

"Can you tell my scent? Or something else?

"And that is fair. I am not new at all. Thus..." He does a rather clumsy flourish.

"And the way you talk," she allows.

That is also true.

"You like it? Having four gripping limbs."

She's curious!

"It's...different. I can get to the rafters with ease. And get around rather swiftly. But walking is a strain. I have the wrong balance. And drag my knuckles.

"Opposable toes are great, though." You might even say they're handy.

X considers this.

"The body already had calluses?"

She scents the air again, just to make sure he is not bleeding.

"I do not know if Cubefall is always efficient."

"I hadn't thought about that.

"But it's essentially borrowed. From a famous chimp in my world. I guess these are his callouses." He hopes that Bobo wasn't left without a body for three days.

X only looks a little dubious.

"He is famous for wearing clothes? Or there is another reason."

People are strange.

"He is famous for being a sentient, verbose detective. Some say he's in the same league as Batman or Ralph Dibny. There are all sorts of Internet rumors about him." He figures that the context will tell X these others are detectives too.

"Oh."

X absorbs that.

And, after a minute --

"He fights aliens, too? And supervillains."

"He's not really a super-hero in the same way you or I are. But I think he once helped Green Lantern and the Flash stop Gorilla Grodd." Him and Rex the Wonder Dog.

The Internet is full of some strange rumors indeed.

X considers this.

"You have not met him?"

"I met very few metahumans. And no metasimians." Is that a word?

X tilts her head, studying him.

"They did not come to your city?"

Beat.

"Or you did not go to theirs."

Or both?

"The only costume who ever came to Hub City was Green Arrow. And he has no powers.

"And when I went to other places, I tended to steer clear of the big guns. The only superhumans I met before coming here I met in a place called Khandaq. And that was sort of by accident." That is, Renee stopped a suicide attack, and Black Adam wanted to thank her.

"I am allowed to ask why?"

Beat.

"You avoid the big guns."

She pronounces that last phrase very carefully. It's not a word pairing that she uses often.

(Or ever, really.)

"Honestly? I always felt out of my league. I was good at what I did. But I didn't have powers. Or funding. Or a track record anyone outside of Hub City knew about.

"Did you know I lived in Chicago for a year and there was never one news story about me?" He ranked behind the Blue Beetle!

X shrugs, one-shouldered and quick.

"The news is not always accurate."

Understatement.

"Or relevant."

In case he was worried.

"But it made the point. Or I thought it did.

"You do know I was a reporter once, right?" One who of course strove for relevance and accuracy.

"You were good at it?"

Inquiring minds want to know.

"I was terrible. Until I wasn't. And then I quit when it seemed like time to move on." A very Charlie kind of answer.

"How did you know?"

X tilts her head, studying him carefully.

"That it was time. To be different."

"When it got hard to keep a job. When being a hero seemed more important. When I was sure that no one would hire me. And when I felt like it was time to change."