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(no subject)

Who: Apollo
Broadcast: Fleet wide
Action: SS Bishop
When: Now-ish?

Broadcast

[Apollo looks... a little flustered? Slightly bewildered? Like he might have accidentally exploded cooking supplies?]

I'm trying this cooking thing. I'm pretty sure it's not dangerous to eat, but does anyone want to come and be a guinea pig? These gel things are making roasts a lot fucking harder than they should be...

Action

[On the Bishop, Apollo has taken over the kitchen for now. He manages to look surprisingly domestic, bumming around in ship standard provided clothing and hair pulled up into a ponytail that bobs along to whatever music he's imagining as he 'cooks'.

Cooking occasionally involves eye lasers. Which doesn't work on the gels half as well as he hoped it would.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He gives a sharp back of laughter.]

Yeah, dick move. We've been together since the first night we were out of program, just us in a big, mean world. Through hell and back, marriage, adopting Jenny...

Fucking bastard.

[He looks up at the ceiling. It's not anger, not really. It's mostly hurt still. He did angry for a while, but he can't really hold onto it.]

And don't you dare apologise. You weren't to know.

[ kate can't even imagine that depth of pain. no doubt, she'd been straight up pissed with noh-varr left her, mid-fight, for his wacko gimp-mask ex-girlfriend...but that was kid stuff. that was a summer-long relationship with a few dimension hops in between. he'd been an asshole, and she'd moved on.

she can't quite wrap her head around the terrible ache that must come with building a life with someone, adopting a kid, and just...watching that get pulled down in front of your eyes. hell, not even her own father was that much of a -- as apollo put it -- fucking bastard. ]

I don't even know the guy. Hell, I barely know you. But if he shows up? I am kicking his ass. Scary dangerous powers or no. The guy needs to take a few lumps.

[ and thus, kate has insta-bonded. ]

[It was Apollo's entire life. Both their entire lives, the first sparks of something when their eyes met across the training hall on occasion, born in the fire of the slaughter of their team and tempered over years of living, arguing, fucking, fighting and shaping their lives from the ground up with the understanding 'you will always be part of me'.

Apollo wrinkles his nose, an odd habit he picked up when he doesn't want to show whatever he's feeling and then shifts slightly.]

I really want to give you a hug for that. I'm a huggy guy. Can I hug you?

You can hug me. I'm okay with hugs. I'm pro-hug.

[ -- she exhales, and grabs her jacket. why a jacket? who knows, it's not like the weather changes much from ship to ship. but it's an old habit. a ritual, before one steps out the door. ] Look, I said I'd stop by. So I'm stopping by. I'll be aboard the Bishop ASAP.

Well, some-

Oh. Okay. Cool.

[He flashes her a bright grin. He likes company. And hugs.]

[ and it doesn't take her long to make good on her threat-promise. kate's shuttle docks at the bishop within the half hour, and she disembarks with a gentle leap onto the bay floor. she doesn't look all that space-hardy, choosing instead to look as casual as casual can be. denim shorts and an oversized button-down shirt. her hair is loosely bunned, and she looks more likely to be found walking downtown than in a spaceship.

she doesn't wait to be met, choosing instead to go straight for the kitchen. ]

[Apollo is in the kitchen still. Since she was on the ship before, he presumes she can find her way to the kitchen without his help.

He's sitting at the table, eating the cake he was baking earlier.

He isn't bothering with cutting slices, just using a fork to dig in, because fuck it, he's allowed to.

He looks up just as she appears and gives a small smile.]

-- Oh, lordy. Did I cause this?

[ she was the one swinging around insensitive questions. kate pauses just inside the doorway. ]

Honestly? I only need a minimal excuse to sit and eat a cake. Pull up a fork, there's plenty to go around.

How much of it is fake food and how much of it is real food? [ but even before he answers, she's fishing a fork out of the drawer. ]

... of the cake? Or my general shoving food in face threshold?

The cake is made with sugar and flour, it's an actual cake.

The cake. [ she smiles, and carves herself a neat little forkful of sweetness immediately after sitting across from apollo. up close, she has a better chance of observing him. and he's much as she might expect: strong, built, and well-jawed. hero physique. ] I'm glad to hear it. On the Blameless, we're so under-upgraded that our pantry's kinda...lacklustre. I have to make a lot of unpleasant substitutions.

Oh, yeah, the cake is real stuff. There's muffins happening, I thought a muffin is that bit dry, so you can use the sweet flavour gel... stuff on it to get sweet and moist and use the gel without the texture being too horrible.

[He pulls a face.]

I don't think I could face just eating that stuff. Mind you, I'm lucky. I have the option to just not eat it.

I made fake pizza last month. It went...okay.

... That sounds...

Different.

Wow, such a charitable way of saying it actually sounds really gross. [ kate smiles. ] It was actually only, like, 40% gross. Which is still a little too high for human consumption.

Well... I've lived on the streets, I've certainly been tempted to eat worse and witnessed far more revolting being eaten.

It just doesn't sound... pleasant.

[ the cake's good, and she reaches across for a second bite. ]

The streets, huh?

Mm.

[He finishes his mouthful of cake.]

Four years.

Where? [ ... ] If you don't mind me asking.

Nah, it's fine. This is all, like, public knowledge back in my home and I don't feel anything like embarrassment or distress about it. It was quite a while ago and... I never had to do it alone, you know?

[That thing again, where he remembers how very entwined their everything was. He sighs and shoves another mouthful of cake in his mouth and eats it before continuing.]

Basically? Anywhere we could hide. We were on the run from an international super hero organisation controlled by the madman who had designed and built us. We mostly moved through Europe and North America where a pair of white men didn't stand out so much.

That was my next question. [ how, indeed, does a superhero end up on the streets? his skills certainly sounded...marketable. ] But I have a little experience with playing fugitive from big organizations. That's not an easy way to live -- not even when you really believe in your cause.

Kudos to you.

Basically... We were custom made. An elite, covert team. And when we failed to recover the horror machine we were sent after... Bendix refused to extract us. Seven of us went in, only Midnighter and I got out and we went on the run. We realised that he was refusing to extract us because of temper, but he'd remember how much we cost and try and recover us if he ever got wind of where we were. Send the team of superheroes he had after us.

We were far more powerful than them... but there was only two of us. And all we had was our memories from waking up in the tanks after we were made onwards and our uniforms. He never sent them after us. Would've raised too many questions about how he knew about us and how we'd come on the scene without being noticed.

We didn't even know when he died. It was another... four months? Until they found out we existed by breaking into Bendix's files.

[He shakes his head and smiles.]

Listen to me, rambling on like an old man.

I don't mind. Ramble away, actually. [ kate's smile is small, but earnest. ] I've already heard most of the big super-powered stories from home. It's...eye-opening to hear about some new ones.

I've spoken to Kitty and Kurt about their worlds. They're... vastly different. My world is very... post humans are everywhere. Some of us are solar powered death weapons and some of us have gills and not much else but we're just... accepted as a part of life.

I have faced way more discrimination for being gay than being a post-human.