driftfleet | Action | Who needs a gosh dang drink??

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Action | Who needs a gosh dang drink??

Who: Steve and everyone else who just needs to get drunk. One closed to existing CR
Broadcast: No
Action: The Iskaulit/Space Bar
When: Post Calibrations/Bombing the eff out of Marsiva

[OPEN]

Tony would probably be proud of Steve, if he were able to see him right now. He'd slap his back and welcome him back to the world of inebriation while ordering shots for everyone in the bar to commemorate the day. As it is, though, Tony isn't here and, without him, there's not a damn person who would feel proud in this entire bar. That's part of it's charm.

Steve sighs and swallows his fourth drink. It's strong and alien and somehow enough to give him a strong buzz but not enough to really get him drunk. Not yet, at least. But he's not a quitter, so bottom's up! He hisses a little at the burn of it and feels, not for the first time, like he was being a coward. He saw some stuff in those rooms, sure. But other people had it so much worse. Saw so much more. He should really be thankful, actually.

But he's not. And this is a 30's approved way of getting over trauma. There were worse ways of coping, he was sure. So for now he's just going to stay in his seat and keep ordering drinks until that elusive drunken state hits him once more.

Should only take another hour or three.

[CLOSED TO EXISTING CR]

No one could blame Steve for starting. He'd messaged his friends about fifteen minutes ago, telling them to meet him at the bar for some drinks. But just sitting here, waiting? It was done better with a drink in hand to look social, at least. And it's not like that one is going to be his last. No, after Calibrations he can imagine himself coming over here quite often. He can imagine all of them coming here quite often, in fact. But maybe tonight (today? Space was hard to judge) would help take some of the sting off. Or at least some of the awkwardness.

But it wasn't as though they <i>chose</i> to share all of that. Loki, Steve is sure, would have preferred to keep his death to himself. And Thor? I am sure half of those memories were things he'd rather not have replayed over and over again. And <i>Hux</i>. God... That was just what Steve knew of. Who knew what other people had put his friends through? What they'd been through themselves?

Steve preemptively orders another drink for whoever shows up first. Whoever it was, he's sure they won't say no. Not now.

First round is on him.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Steve smiles, enjoying the sense of challenge he's getting from Kitty.]

I warn you, I grew up during Prohibition and The Great Depression. If you think I haven't already drank some strange things, I have news for you. [And he really, really has. Some of it didn't even have names.]

Go and do your worst.

[She laughs. Not because prohibition and the Great Depression are hilarious, but more so because she feels like she's got a leg up on them.] Well, I grew up during the wholesale collapse of global societies, but I'll skip giving you anything irradiated anyway. [She says it lightly and matter-of-factly. It's also not hilarious, but it's her past. She hasn't been there in many years. There's nothing she can do about it from here and sometimes you just have to laugh at the bad things so you aren't always screaming or crying at them.]

Hmm...appletinis are pretty weird. [Surely there is something better than that but even with her big game talk she's not sure what makes a good weird drink.]

[Steve's eyebrows shoot up at that. He realizes too late that he doesn't really know anything about Kitty or where she comes from. He needs to fix that if they're going to be allies and friends.]

Appletini. I've heard of those. Go ahead.

[He leans back in his chair and smiles lopsidedly.]

So. Collapse of global societies? Did you want to talk about that? I won't force you.

[She calls over the bartender who she seems to know and requests two appletinis. THen she smiles at him.]

Caught that part, did ya? [She doesn't mind talking about it. It's the fabric of her life. It's stranger not talking about it, but it also tends to be something of a buzzkill to bring up. Still, he asked and she doesn't want to push him away.]

Assuming your history is like the other Steve's we're from similar worlds. You might even call them somewhat overlapping. We had Prohibition, The Great Depression, and World War II complete with a Captain America who fought in it. Of course, they were all before I was born, but still, they happened. The big thing we had that you didn't have though were mutants. People born with genetic quirks. We [yes we] develop powers at puberty. Sometimes earlier. Sometimes later, but usually about then. One minute your dealing with pimples. [She lifts a hand up deliberately and holds it just above the table for a moment before giving the table an audible pat.] And the next you're falling through the floor because you can't maintain tangibility. [She pushes her hand through the table like there's nothing there so only the rest of her arm is still visible above it.]

[It's not the first time he's seen someone go through something. But it is the first time he's seen a human girl do it and not by way of some forced magical powers. Steve's eyes go wide as he watches Kitty's arm disappear but that's about the only reaction he makes for a long moment. When he can move again he blinks and reaches out, touching her hand where it meets the table.

Woah. Okay, that is new.]

That can't be an easy puberty. The worst I had to deal with was pneumonia and being punched.

[It's amazing. A smile comes over his face because, even though he knows he must have seen this before, it's really incredible.]

Kitty, this is...really amazing. Are all mutants given powers like this?

[The way he just smiles at it and seems impressed is nice. It's not unexpected since it's Steve but it still means something to her after all this time away from home. Back there showing something like that to a human would not have resulted in a smile. Steve isn't exactly without extraordinary abilities himself, but maybe that just makes it sweeter in a way that he'd still see the wonder in it. Especially if he's already met Vision at his timeline.

She withdraws her hand from the table.]

The pneumonia doesn't sound fun. Not that the punching does either. Most mutants get a power of some kind. Not this one specifically. For some it's more about the way it changes their physical appearance. We don't all pass for human. Sometimes it's both. [Like Kurt or even Remy with his red eyes.] One of my teammates from back home is here. He teleports. Another mutant in the fleet can charge items with kinetic energy until they explode.

Do you want to try it? The phasing? I can extend my powers to anything or anyone I'm touching. [She holds her hand out to him—solid now.]

[Pneumonia wasn't fun but it's been years now. He barely remembers what it had been like to be so sick and so weak. He'd gotten last rites more times than he could count and still kept on kicking. Not fun but just part of his past.

At the invitation for phasing, Steve's natural curiosity gets the better of his politeness. Without a question he takes her hand and holds onto it loosely.]

Does it hurt?

[He's not worried if it does. He knows he's probably had worse.]

Only if you let go before you're safely out of anything solid. That would be bad. Don't do that. You wouldn't even really know it was happening if you weren't paying attention. But I think when you're aware of it and watching it happen sometimes the mind fills in a feeling for it. Some people say it feels tingly or strange in other ways.

[The trust he shows by placing his hand in hers means a lot to her.]

I have us phased now so I'm the only other thing that's going to feel solid to you. You can cross through anything else you want. Oh, but not your communicator.

[Steve doesn't feel anything different. He reaches for his drink and passes through it. The shock of that is about enough to have him drop Kitty's hand so he grips it all the tighter. He doesn't need to visit the hospital for anything, here.]

This is incredible. How...how do we not pass through the-

[As soon as he thinks it, he's going through his chair. It's only with effort and a laugh that he straightens himself up again.]

Amazing. Absolutely amazing.

[OOC:LMK if I did that wrong. New to phasing. Can edit!]

[Kitty laughs, still seated, still very much holding his hand and prepared to grip harder too if need be, but he seemed to be getting the hang of it.]

It's because you aren't really on the chair You're interacting with the molecules above it.

[She stands up. Part of her still in her chair.]

Which is also, how we can do this. [She takes a step up onto the air as if walking up an invisible staircase, careful not to let go of his hand in the process of course.] I call it air walking.

(OOC: It's perfect!)

Edited 2019-03-11 01:40 (UTC)

[It's magic. Magic that's not magic. Steve watches in open awe before standing up and trying to follow her example. It doesn't work at first. He steps through the chair and then into the bar. Then, as he focuses more, his leg goes through the floor before he drags it back up and...

Okay. Okay, it's not a big step but he gets up an inch or so. And then another. But within a moment the success of it breaks Steve's concentration and he falls down once more.]

This is...It's amazing! All the things you can do with a power like this! Your world...how did it fall apart when people could do amazing things like this?

[She smiles and watches him try to mimic what she'd done. It's so second nature to her now, but she remembers what a mess she was when the power first manifested and how she would trigger it accidentally and couldn't control it. There was no model to base it on. She didn't know what she could and couldn't do yet. So to her eyes Steve is doing pretty well really. And she likes how much he's enjoying it. Her powers weren't really anything she thought of as fun for a long time. They were tied to some bad things especially early on. She likes when she can use them to delight instead of scare or hurt though.]

You're doing great, but let's make sure you're out of all the solid things and get you back to your solid self. [After all, she can't keep phasing up forever either.]

I guess I never really finished the story of how everything became the worst, did I? Where did I leave off? Right, some people were mutants. That didn't go over so well. For a long time mutants more or less hid their powers but as they became more recognized hysteria about it would grow. Tensions. People wanting to get rid of us or "cure" us or put us on lists. All the while an immortal mutant who called himself Apocalypse was gathering his forces, building an army to push his agenda of only the strong surviving. The mutants. He started culling cities and armies would attack and get destroyed. Some of it was far away at first. You wouldn't even recognize a world wide map anymore. Chunks of South America are just gone and Central America is completely gone. Not just devastated, but gone. There's ocean there now. What's left below is irradiated. Part of Asia and Africa are too. And North America is blocked off now with his horsemen in charge of the districts. There are still human settlements in western Europe and northern Africa and pockets in other places where they're largely in hiding and struggling to find resources or trying to flee. [This does not feel like an appletini kind of conversation.]

[He sits there listening and it's the worst sort of Hell that he hears. Except, of course, for the one still waiting in his own future.]

That...

[There's no words and he can't find any to even make an attempt. He just reaches out and holds Kitty's shoulder, eyes bright with compassion.]

I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry.

[She doesn't try to shake his hand or anything, but she's also not sure how to accept his words. So she just continues.] The worst part is that's not how it was supposed to go. Turned out a time traveler messed up the time stream and that led to Apocalypse's take over. We were an accident. [That's a mindfuck she didn't really have time to process in her world. Not until she was hanging out in abduction lands.]

Also, it was clear I wasn't with Apocalypse, right? [She did just talk about how the mutants were wiping out humanity and she is a mutant after all.] A few mutants were fighting back. The X-Men.

The X-men. Sounds like your version of The Avengers. [It makes him sort of proud that no matter what people were going to come together and try to protect the world.] I'm sure that it's just a matter of time before you figure out how to beat him. No one that evil can win.

[Steve, above all, believes that: evil will never win.]

Were you all working on some sort of plan? With your powers and others' there had to be something you all could do?

In some worlds both exist and there is some crossover in the teams. [Logan said he had fought for both when he was in the fleet.]

We were enacting a plan when I got pulled out into Marina and then I went from there to here. I haven't been back in years. [She's not sure she has the heart to tell him either the nature of that plan or that her teammate is from five years into the future and about how they did defeat Apocalypse but things actually got worse from there. It seemed evil won and was trying to make it's way into the multiverse.]

You can't catch a break, huh?

[Steve shakes his head, feeling sorrowful for Kitty and her long exile from home.]

Do you miss it? After all these years? Home is still home, I imagine. Even when it's broken and hard. It's still your home.

I caught a pretty big one actually. [She's not sure she has the heart to explain that to him either. She pauses before she pushes through with it, more worried about his reaction than how she might feel about it. It's not news to her.]

I was seconds away from dying when they pulled me out. My teammate is here from five years into the future. He remembers me dying that day. [It's not the only proof she has, but it's the simplest to explain.]

But I do still miss it sometimes. The other X-Men anyway.

[Steve's eyes go wide, stunned at that news. He'd known that people were kidnapped in tight spots before. But to know that you were seconds away from death? Steve can't imagine...]

So...if you go back?

[Some people even come from after they died.]

I'll have a couple of seconds, but unless I remember my time here I won't use them to save myself.

I can't imagine what that must be like, to know that. [And to know that there is nothing she can do to save herself. Neither if she goes back or to stop herself from going back. It's the epitome of helplessness and he's sure Kitty hates it as much as he would.]

Maybe that can be what we look for here: a way to remember, if you go back. I've heard some people come back here, remembering. It can't be impossible.

We can always add it to the list. [The list of all the many things they are trying to work out while they're here. Ways of getting to different worlds or undermining the Atroma.]

I did not take it gracefully when I found out. Many drinks were had and the entire prison was drunk dialed about it.

[Steve laughs a little even though it's not funny. Drunk dialing a prison. Yeah. He can see that. And he's not sure he'd do differently; he found out Bucky dies in his future along with half the universe and the only reason that hasn't sent him spiraling is because he's actively not thinking about it.]

No one could blame you for that. But we're gonna figure it out. I'm not gonna let you walk back into your death unaware. Not if I can help it.

[It was kind of funny. Now anyway. Maybe not back then. It was also a memory several fleet members saw recently in calibrations so it's out there.]

Steve, don't take on more heroing than you can bite off. [She's worried about what state he'll be in when friends start disappearing as they always do here.]

[He shrugs.]

I can handle a lot, trust me. And I have friends to help me with what I can't. Right?

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