milliways_bar | (no subject)

(no subject)

There's an Ace, in the bar.

Actually, she's curled up in her favorite comfy chair, near the fire.

She looks knackered. Saying goodbye to a friend after dealing with your distraught wizard husband will do that. She probably didn't sleep last night.

She's trying to get it together for tonight. Maybe something stronger than the cocoa she's drinking will help that.

((Summary: Ace talks to Barry, who is happy Ace is not still Klarion-ized. He and Ace talk about the not-joy of being a hero's wife, Tonk's disappearance, and Sara needing to talk to Tim. Ace kindly does not cheer on the Barry/Sara OTP, even though she wants to very much.
Ace meets Akito, who wants to know what a Dalek is. Ace's brain breaks at the image of a Dalek doing counselling, and Ace is not a nonvocal, one-handed dead jedi master.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Barry sees her. All he's thinking about is making sure she has her memories back,

"Hi. I hear you're yourself again."

She offers him a wry grin. It's rather tired and faded, but she's trying.
"Always was m'self, just not all of m'self. But yeah, I'm all here now."

"Well, I'm glad to have you back. So's Sara.

"Can I assume Tim did his usual magic?" Barry figures she's just tired form what she'd been through.

Hah, she wishes.
"Yeah. Got a couple people to help, since I was none too keen about going anywhere near him. Bloody magic mismatches." She sighs.

"Think I'll ask Tim about that then. I'm always curious about such things. Lord help me."

The grin she attempts falls a little flat.
"Nothing must interesting about it. Just me being stupid." Yeah, she's gone back to that. Ace's emotions are more like a merry-go-round than a rollercoaster.

"Er, oh." Barry feels a bit embarrassed that he's go her thinking this way.

"More likely some enemy of Tim being clever. I know I don't know you that well just yet, but you don't strike me as stupid. Perhaps a little unprepared to be the wife of a hero, but not stupid.

"And i can tell you, it takes a lot to be a hero's wife. More than it does to be a hero."

She frowns, and studies her mug.
"I knew he was in London. But I went anyway. I knew he had a bloody short temper. Mouthed off to him anyway. Knew all he wanted were the memories of Tim. Tried to keep them anyway. Bleedin' idiot."

"Um, can I ask who?" Well, if she's talking about it, maybe it will help to get her to talk about all of it.

"Called himself Klarion. Had a cat. And a brute squad." She pauses. "And a little hideout, but I kinda blew that up."

He smiles. "Well, at least you gave him one back.

"Klarion. Let me think." His mind races.

"There was a very small reference to him in the JLA files. I think Batman reported that there was a fight between him and a demonic entity called Etrigan near Gotham, but that's all I know."

She shrugs, slightly.
"Don't think he'll be much of a problem anymore." She's not sure what Tim has planned for the git-boy, but she's pretty sure it'll be very permanent.

"No, I can't imagine he would be," Barry says in something of a soft voice. Tim plays rough, no doubt.

"When you see him, tell him that if he wants to compare notes with me about such things, I'm available. Got some other stuff I need to let him know about anyway.

"Oh, and I have one other really tiny favor. I need to have Sara talk to Tim, so she can get put on the detective squad with me. But they never seem to connect. So perhaps you could direct him to her, or her to him? Sara wants to do this, but I think maybe she needs just a small reminder." He says this with warmth in his voice.

"Get Tim and Sara together, check. Though I don't know how fast I'll be able to pull that off, he's a little... preoocupied with the whole Tonks missing thing." Understatement of the century, right there. She has the gift.

And thus does Barry finally hear about this.

"Tonks missing?"

Ace blinks at him, slowly. Oops?
"Erm. Yes. Evidently there was an attack yesterday in Tonk's world while she was working. Tonks is MIA. S'why... well. It's one of the whys for everyone being so down today."

He takes it in.

"Oh. She told me about the war she was involved in on her world. Hadn't really thought much about it. I hope she's okay.

"Poor Bernard and Sunny. This does explain why the Bar is so out of sorts. It reacts to Bernard more than I thought." He wonders if perhaps the building as well is keyed to Bernard. It would explain a lot more about the general mood, even among those who don't have a clue about this.

"Tim is trying to help find her?"

"Tim... I dunno. He's going to help. But he's not running this show." And perhaps, just maybe, a small voice that's furious at all of the demands this place puts on her husband is glad. But she'll never, ever say it.

"No, Bernard would be." A tiny if ironic smile comes to Barry's face.

"I think that somewhere on Tonks' world, someone is in deep trouble. The man has a temper at the best of times, and he makes the way each of us feels about our beloveds seem like a schoolboy crush."

She eyes Barry, curiously.
"Don't you know? Bernard can't leave. I think that's the only reason he's here, and not bombing the hell out of the git's hideout or sommat."

He thinks and almost smacks his head.

"Right! I forget. I'm so used to people in my situation - being Bound but able to go to other worlds - that I forgot. Poor guy.

"Still, if there's one thing I've learned here, it's that we manage to get things right. Tim proved that, more than once." And Barry hopes he's not letting his natural optimism boil over too much.

"Anyway, I can see you are a bit tired, so I'll stop talking now. Let Tim know that if he needs me to step up to on-duty while he's handling this, I'm ready."

"Ta, Barry. I'll let him know." She smiles at him. She does not say 'Y'know, Sara's a lucky gal', even if she does think it. She promised Sara, after all.
"See you around?"

There's a scruffy-haired guy over there, eyeing the notice board kind of thoughtfully. That probably wouldn't catch Ace's attention.

Until he wonders aloud to the bar in general, "What's a Da-leck anyway?"

"Tempermental pepper-pots that register on the Richter scale." Ace replies absent-mindedly. Then she blinks.
"And who are you?" She asks, tilting her head back so she can see him around the chair.

Akito cranes his neck around to look over his shoulder. "I'm Akito Tenkawa, hello there." he offers. He casts another slightly baffled look at the board, and then turns around fully. "They cause earthquakes?"

He steps around the chair helpfully, so she doesn't have to tilt her head too far.

"M'Ace. No, just meant they're really big. For pepperpots." Though, when she thinks about it, she doesn't see any reason why they couldn't cause earthquakes. They cause all sorts of other damage, so why not?

Akito's image of a pepperpot is something along the lines of one of the tall pepper grinders used in restaurants. So he's making some interesting faces as he tries to picture one of those sized up to 'really big' scale.

"Well, whatever they are, they've gone into relationship consoling." he shrugs. He's busy trying to decide if she just introduced herself as 'Mace'.

... At least she doesn't look like a dark-skinned, closed-mouthed jedi.

"Relationship..." She stares, stunned. That... is a very, very, very painful mental image.
"Please tell me you're joking."

Akito is terribly helpful. "No, really. See?" He circles back around to the notice board and taps a finger on the notice (http://www.livejournal.com/community/milliways_bar/5756501.html) a few times. "At least I think it's for real. I guess it could be some kind of joke. Are these a widely known group of... pepperpots?" he has to ask.

While he's back there he gets a look at the back of her jacket. 'Ace', ah, right. That sounds more likely.

Ace stares. For quite a long time. Dear. Lord. Almighty.

"There's one in the bar." She finally says, faintly. "Bernard said he got it to change it's operating procedure. He's created a monster."

Akito takes a couple of moments to remember. "Bernard is the, uhm. Guy who runs things, right? Around here?" He's pretty sure someone mentioned this to him when he was looking around for someone to talk to about a chef's position. "He reprogrammed it somehow?" The mental image quietly swaps to 'giant pepper mill with a psychatrist's couch alongside it'.

Frankly, that isn't improving matters at all. He still looks confused. Accepting that this is weird, but mildly and politely confused.

"He... I dunno, I tried not to inquire too closely, since I don't want anything to do with the creature, unless I get to blast it. But he told it, basically, to either behave like a civilized being, or get thrown in lock-up for the rest of its life."

She pauses.

"Personally, I like the latter option."

He manages to at least look sheepish at that, "Ah... sorry I brought it up then."

Still, he glances over at the flyer, and then shakes his head and steps away from it. "It's a good thing I'm not in bad enough shape to try for that then. Thanks for the head's up."

She shrugs.
"Might be good for a laugh, if it really can't shoot anyone. I'd just be careful - they really, really like killing things. People. Whatever isn't them."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only