driftfleet | all aboard the ss blamless

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all aboard the ss blamless

Who: Crew of the SS Blameless and visitors.
Broadcast: Nope
Action: SS Blameless
When: March, or until we feel like a new one.

[It's a mingle! Get out of the car!

Unique ship notes for new crew and visitors: giant, unmissable scorch marks currently line the walls of several corridors leading from the cargo hold to the bridge!

Also, thanks to Kate, we now have a SWEARS AND ATTITUDES JAR displayed prominently in the kitchen. Whenever someone's being naughty instead of nice, they're compelled to deposit a few credits (or at least an iou) into the awaiting jar.

Also also, we are all still bunking together. HAVE FUN.]

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"Were you anglin' towards an insult there? Word has it, my mind's got a bunch of chessmasters runnin' around in it."

Or something like that. Someone had described his battle prowess being equal to a bunch of chess games being played or some bullshit like that. It was something he knew in no way actually made him all that smart. He didn't need to be when he had people like Hank around.

"More like angling to head your protest off at the pass," she answered. Because she'd heard her words spoken out loud and realized (a moment later) that Wolverine might counter with exactly that: he wasn't a genius. At least, not a tech one.

"Chessmasters, though." She huffed a sigh. "Do they all get their own pocket protectors in there, or do they share one?"

He shook his head. "Probably more the beards-to-their-ankles crowd. Two inch glasses."

Logan had never actually watched a chess battle. But he had seen chess players in the park. He assumed it was more or less the same idea.

"-- So, who said it?"

The word. The gossip that he had such wily old coots populating his brain-space and making him all...strategic. At least, that's about as close as she could get to his meaning. After all, it's not like it fully rebuked her point. Chessmasters weren't tech geniuses. Not by default, at least.

"Forge." He shrugged. "He's full of shit."

"Never heard of the guy," she admitted. It was an easy admission. "X-Men? X...Man? Are you even allowed to use it in the singular?"

Kate might have teamed up with mutants, as well as consider herself to be something of a 'mutant ally', but she knew so very little about the X-Men themselves. She knew what she got on the grapevine -- or she knew what Prodigy told her in the rare quiet moments they'd spent between universes with time to spare for gossiping. But she'd always been more deeply entrenched in the Avengers' scene.

"He's our tech guy." As an Avenger he could claim their handful of tech guys as well, but he was an X-Man first. Speaking of which: "And X-Woman when appropriate."

"I thought women on the team were still X-Men. Like French pronouns."

"They are. Unless it's singular. It's complicated."

"When is it ever not?"

She asked the question, but it remained rhetorical. So, instead, she jumped straight into a fresh line of inquiry: "Hey. The kerfuffle with Azula. That was with you, wasn't it?"

Process of elimination at this point. Plus, she knew what sort of weaponry he was packing.

For a passing moment, Logan fixed her with searching eyes before they turned back to the bustling cargo bay ahead of him.

"Yeah. That was me. The kid's lucky I went so easy on her."

"What'd she do?"

Her motives were two-fold. First and foremost, Kate Bishop wanted to believe in this iteration of Wolverine. She didn't want to think about the hot-headed old man who'd slammed her against the wall and brandished adamantium to her neck. She wanted reasons to separate this man from that one. She wanted to paint a better picture.

Second? Well, secondly...she didn't really trust Azula. Not by much, at least. And to that end, it was worth hearing Wolverine's side of the story.

"She didn't think I was being respectful enough. Thought some flash and flames would put me in my place. It didn't."

Logan pushed himself off the wall and began walking. It was not to leave her, but rather an expectation she would fall in step beside him.

"That kid's packing a lot of firepower."

And fall in step she did. Kate wasn't a particularly obedient young woman, but she was respectful. Perhaps even more so than with the others aboard the Blameless, she would afford Wolverine all the respect necessary -- right up until he betrayed that respect, and then she'd start setting bridges ablaze.

"Too much?" Kate queried. Perhaps any amount was 'too much' in the wrong hands, but she'd asked the question more in the spirit of wondering whether Azula could be handled. Whether the bloodshed had been necessary, and whether she should work all the quicker to get herself a decent bow.

Behind, one of the cleaning droids zipped around underfoot as it picked up tiny microbes of filth that Logan would otherwise not have been bothered to have noticed much less have cleaned.

"Enough." He did not particularly care to go into detail just how bad it actually had been. "Her powers are based on her movements. Putting that hole in her shoulder was the best way to slow her down, short of removing it outright."

She nodded. Wolverine didn't need to do much more in the way of justifying his actions. Paradoxically, his blunt recitation of the facts (as he saw them) was more than enough proof to bring Kate into the belief that he was doing what he felt he needed to do. Did she like that it put a kind of gloomy pall across the ship so early into its commission? No. But the hard truth was that she was more inclined to trust Wolverine than a stranger.

"I can't say I applaud your specific sorta methods," she said. But that was no surprise, and she doubted he needed anyone's applause in order to feel vindicated in his actions. "However, I gotta say. She hasn't caused much trouble since. Aside from a very brief knife-throwing incident earlier today but...I might've brought that one on myself."

Logan did nothing to disguise his sneer to hear her mild rebuke. From someone who he still saw as a rookie, he wasn't entirely all that inclined to take her opinions much in consideration. If he did, it was only because of what respect Clint had earned (some), her status as a shipmate, and the grudging knowledge that she was actually good at what she did.

"How exactly did you manage that?"

"Made too much noise while Her Highness was trying to get her beauty sleep." Kate gesticulated -- a little wildly, if we're being honest. "Those were the actual words she used. Beauty sleep. Threw a knife right past my nose."

Missed (on purpose), of course. And now Kate was one throwing knife richer. But it was the principle of the action that rubbed her wrong.

Logan grimaced. "Must be she's feeling better. If she's healed up, she'll be looking for comeuppance."

He'd made his threat to her implicit. One slip up and he'd finish the job. But it was a threat he really had no desire to make good on. She was in the end still just a kid.

"She's sour over the vote," Kate added. "And wasn't too fond of democracy to begin with."

"It would've been easier if she'd won. I even voted for her."

-- Kate's easy stride seemed to break. Although she didn't stop walking, there was a renewed and frenetic energy to the way her steps grew in length so she might overtake Wolverine. He voted for her? Confusion (and a little dismay) stamped her expression. She could be seen searching her own mental machinations for the long-game to be found in such a vote, but all prospective perks came up wanting. Nothing made the risk worth it, in her mind.

After all, Kate had cut her teeth during the Registration Act mess. And then during Osborn's reign. And while she wasn't about to say Azula was a little Norman in the making, she couldn't help the dread she'd felt at the prospect of someone so keen on centralized power gunning for the Captain's chair. Out of the ashes of that particular political climate, Kate could never have coped with voting for Azula even if it made better long-term strategic sense.

It just wasn't right.

"Easier isn't always better," she answered with a thick irony in her voice. It sounded like an Avengers-y thing to say, after all. And she didn't doubt he'd probably said something similar enough somewhere within his own tenure.

He never broke pace. While she worked out how she felt about the notion, Logan's mind rested on the simply logic that had made him cast that surprise vote. Norman Osborn's reign was far fresher and recent in his memory, but he wasn't thinking on that scale. It didn't make sense for him.

"No it's not," he agreed. "But it ain't better having her gunning for our captain. That kid ain't cut out to deal with her. I'd rather her think she's in charge than weaseling her way into it."

"That kid is..." she trailed off. Luke Skywalker. Maybe Wolverine didn't know? Maybe Wolverine didn't watch movies. But, even so. Kate quickly abandoned that frame of argument, letting it trail off into nothingness.

"Her thinking she was in charge would be insufferable. At least now she can't be all that surprised if we don't obey her every demand."

"The real trouble is if she abandons ship. You and I both know it ain't all that hard getting a transfer." That was the point right there. He wanted to keep her on this ship where he could deal with her.

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ladybro - 2016-03-25 22:54 (UTC) - Expand

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