Franklin "Foggy" Nelson (
avakaido) wrote in
nexus_sages2016-03-24 08:32 pm
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holy guacamole it's foggy nelson!
"Excuse me." Bumped past someone. What? He's preoccupied with trying to find out where he is exactly. The seats at the forum seem like a good place to crash. This is what he gets for venturing out to a fancy schmancy coffee shop that Marci picked out. The door should have lead to the bathroom.
Should have.
"You ever feel like you're just really, really lost?"
Should have.
"You ever feel like you're just really, really lost?"
I'm so meta. :P
She pats his hand and leans back now that there's food and drink between them. Her croissant is flaky, buttery, and properly not curled. She's a dunker. "Oh no, lots of things are different. The Incident never happened where I'm from. I mean, we had plenty of other attempted alien invasions, but not the way that happened. The Red Skull didn't die in the war. Sokovia isn't a place I'd ever heard of. Tony Stark didn't build Ultron."
She shrugs and has a bite of her croissant, letting him take all that in before she continues. "So, there are similarities, but... it's kind of like reading a book then watching the movie. Things change."
:DDD
"So Hell's Kitchen isn't so bad then? We didn't get...smashed?" Because that seems like a given. Or something. "Did you relocate because something happened?" Excuse him while he digs into the cake now.
Of course, there really are comics about the Avengers and FF and whatnot where she's from...
Just in time for him to ask those questions. Her gaze drops. She waits for his mouth to be empty.
"My world no longer exists. A portion of the multiverse was collapsed in on itself. We um. There wasn't time to implement the solution."
what if the comics have the mcu plotlines? :o
"What?" Excellent gauge of timing. Unfortunately he has no idea what kind of can of worms this is. "What happened? It has to exist cuz New York still exists. And you still exist." Foggy waits before taking in any more cake. They might require more. And coffee. He can see the trouble dawn on her face and it's too late to turn in any other direction.
That'd be a trip!
"I escaped. I came here." She doesn't want to come home, Foggy. She wants to go home, but she can't. "Beings called the Beyonders. Those Who Sit Above In Shadows. They wanted to see what would happen if the Multiverse collapsed. So they..."
She holds out a hand, open and empty, then snaps it shut.
"The only way for one planet to survive was to destroy the other Earths set on a course to collide with it. People here helped me find a way to stop that, but there wasn't time to stop that for my world. So." So here she is. The refugee with no papers and no place willing to claim her.
/chin hands this idea
"Oh," it's a deflated, single word. He purses his lips and his brow furrows. "I'm...Jesus. Verity, I'm so sorry. We must make you feel like such oblivious idiots." Just going about their ways and days like it's nothing.
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"What? No. You had no way of knowing. It's... I mean. Knowing that other people are still alive and well is kind of comforting." It's not okay, it's never going to be okay, but it doesn't have to be a crisis situation forever.
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Matt is indeed too dedicated to heroing, it's true. Foggy will agree 100% to that. He's learning how to be a lawyer and a hero. They're not the same thing apparently.
"You can say we're frustrating in our ignorance. I'm already frustrated." It's Foggy's turn to reach across the table and lightly touch her hand. "I don't mean to just... barge in on like your reality right now. Hah." Even if he had no control. "So you got out and came here."
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Lawyers are heroes who work within the law; vigilantes are heroes who work without. They're two sides of a man.
"You're not." She'd tell him if she were frustrated... eventually. It's still important to her to have his good opinion. The offered comfort gets a little smile from her. "Actually, I'm kind of glad you came here. I don't like lying to people."
She turns her hand so she can give his a little pat, then nudges it back toward his cake. He should be enjoying that, not worrying about her. "Right. When I realized there wasn't any stopping things, I decided to move here. And... well. Not many people listened to me, when I tried to warn them about what was going to happen."
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They are the same side of a man. The man has to at least not act like a bonehead. Matt has been pretty good as of late. Foggy just holds him to a more harsh standard as his good friend and general vigilante critic.
"Glad to take the monkey off of your back," he nods and returns to his fork. "That must have been terrible. You can't say you never tried though, right?" Usual efforts for a silver lining are not as helpful here. "Thank God you got out," he says this softly, unsure of just how okay it is talk about this in length. Surely she and Matt have had long conversations on the matter. He'd sort of like one with his buddy right now for a few strong words.
"I don't like lying either."
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She doesn't have much to say--she could have done more, risked more... probably died with everyone else then, but that's what real heroes do. The gratitude that she's still alive confuses her for a moment, but then she manages a thin smile. "I thought it was his place to tell you, when he was ready. It's part of why I didn't come to meet you sooner. Matt's always told me such lovely stories about you."
Yes, she's changing the subject. Please don't press, Foggy, not right now.
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A sip of coffee at least before more cake. The bitter before the sweet.
He returns her smile. "He didn't actually make them lovely did he? I mean, I'm pretty sure that the first week as roommates he only tolerated me. Matt insists it's because he's really a shy, slow to get to know type. It's a gimmick to get you to be encouraging." Yeah this is a safer, friendlier territory.
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"Oh, is that how it went with you? He's been somewhat more forward with me." Shy about some things, sure, but he was certainly the one taking the lead for most of their relationship. "We first met at a big party. It was Halloween and he was dressed as Waldo. Surprisingly, not that hard to find."
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"I mean, okay he does the smiling thing and the 'sure let's do that' thing. Anybody can do that. I knew it was real when he let me listen to his recorded notes even though I ate his Greek food. That's friendship." He chews thoughtfully imagining the scene and grins around his bite.
"That was my idea. I mean, he knows what Waldo looks like but to make him be Waldo." Foggy points to himself. "Even before I learned he's got...something it was always really weird to me that he'd somehow be able to be with really attractive girls. It was like he was Tommy except not with pinball machines."
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"That is," she agrees. "Sharing food is one of the primal bonding rituals." Says the woman who's fed him twice now. It's almost like, in lieu of knowing what she's doing, she's been reading a lot of books. (She has been; research is easier than actually talking to people.)
"Ah, I must have been a surprise." That's not an attempt to fish for compliments; she knows she's a five, maybe a six where she's from. But the scale she grew up with includes goddesses, so. "Who's Tommy?"
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"It so is. I mean, I meant to ask. I was starving. That's primal. Maybe a little high. I don't do that any more. He never did to start. Maybe that was part of the whole feeling each other out thing. Matty is such a square." And he says it with absolute fondness. "He did eat a brownie once." Foggy tries to stifle just how much this humors him. "Wait. So what lovely things has he actually told you?"
Woah, woah. Franklin Percy Nelson has super sensitivity to self-depreciation. He mmms his way through his cake to point the fork at her. "Listen here lady, you're hot stuff. You're very edgy with the tattoos and the hair, way cool." Goddesses or not five or six? Way harsh. And Foggy has the good sense to not complete his thought with 'way cooler than any other girl Matt has been with.'
"Tommy? It's The Who's rock opera? That deaf, dumb and blind kid sure plays a mean pin baaaall. That one." As if that explains it. He sips his macchiato again. Every now and then he catches a glimpse of the waitstaff or someone very odd passing by the window but.... it feels like he's any other place catching up.
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It's good he sounds so fond of Matt, she wouldn't usually let someone get away with calling her Matty anything like that. But from him, it gets a smirk. "Oh, did he? Just the once?" She finds it hard to imagine him ever doing that. Impaired senses doesn't seem like his idea of a good time. But everyone does stupid things in college.
"Oh, he told me what a good friend you've always been, how lucky he is you took the chance in opening Nelson and Murdock, how much you like bagels." Plenty of other things too. "Nothing too embarrassing, don't worry."
She doesn't view it as self-depreciation; to her, it's a simple truth. But she'll take the compliments with a smile. "Thank you." Comparing her to exes would not be a smart move; on one hand, she'd love knowing she wins, but on the other, it'd make her wonder about them. She doesn't need to do that.
"Oh. Right." She still has no idea what he's talking about, but it's so much easier to pretend a little and smooth over these things. It's going to be a familiar refrain from her before long. Anyway, there's something more important she ought to tell him. "So... did Matt ever tell you about my power?"
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"Yeah, just once. It was a pretty big brownie. It was the week before finals. We usually label food and I usually warn him if there's something up.The good part was that he was giggly, more hungry than before and slower than an arthritic turtle. After though," Foggy clicks his tongue. "Once was enough."
Baw. Even though those are very true facts, Foggy beams at knowing that it's information he proudly shares with his girl. "True on all counts. Though I think some embarrassing thing or two must have slipped out. It's only fair."
Another bite of cake and he nods. "He said you're like... fact sensitive? I don't know if he told Karen. He said that I just need to be honest and there aren't any problems. So. I mean, it's like an allergy or something?" "Please Fog, don't lie to her or in front of her. It's like nails on a chalkboard or a hit in the face. Just don't do it."
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"Yeah... me too. I don't do well with that sort of thing." What? She went to college. She was uptight and frigid and all the things that people use as excuses to offer her drugs still. Once was more than enough.
"I guess it would depend on your definition of embarrassing? There wasn't anything I think poorly of you for." Croissant finished, she curls her hands around her half-empty mug. "Matt wants us to get along too much to risk it with a silly story about that time you wore your pants inside out."
She hums softly at the partial understanding and gives a little shrug. "Sort of. I'm a human lie detector. You know how frustrating it is when you know someone's lying to you? I feel that all the time. It's tiring."
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"You too? Well, it's really an acquired taste. I got too much to do now to get baked. Besides law school really got it out of my system." He laughs but boy. The threat was real.
He almost coughs some of his macchiato. Almost. "I still don't know how he knew! I mean, he didn't even touch me. They weren't like... zipped and buttoned pants either. Faux everything. I had to book it to the men's room before opening statements." Laughter means that everything is fine on his end.
Foggy thinks back to that confrontation nearly a year ago with Matt looking like tenderized meat. "Yeah, I don't think that would be a great feeling at all. I try not to. I mean, on principle everyone should try not to but... I really put forth the effort. And it doesn't stop or like dampen if you get sick or something?"
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"Matt just knows things. I try not to worry about the reasons so much." 'Try' being the key word. She worries about him constantly, and has spent some considerable effort trying to understand his powers. But in the end, it's all for naught. He does what he does and she cannot truly understand it. "You wear fake pants to court? Oh, Foggy."
She shakes her head at his question. "No. Nothing stops it. Nothing I've ever found. There were a few ideas when I came here, but... they didn't amount to anything."
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"It's less eerie than it used to be to me. He used to just call it a hunch if I pressed him enough for reasoning." Which gets a big eye roll from Foggy. Fake pants though, he shrugs. "It was only for emergencies! I mean they looked like slacks. Why would anyone look at me, you know? That was when we were nobodies at L&Z. I think Matt might have been the only person to catch on."
He pushes his plate back and cups his own drink. "Did you ever try to like short it out or get... afflicted with believing every lie and maybe they'd like fritz one another out?" As he says this his face grows more and more grim and he waves it away. "I'm sorry. All of that is terrible. Don't listen to me."
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"Matt's identity was public knowledge where I'm from, so once I knew his name I knew what he did. That's probably helped. At least I don't wonder if it's another woman that keeps him so busy at night." With Foggy, it seems safe to be a little more honest about how frustrating Matt's heroing is. She can love it and wish it weren't so all-consuming at the same time.
"Let me tell you two true things, Foggy." She lifts her gaze and waits until she has his full attention. "The first one is, someone is always watching. The second is, you have never been a nobody." No sign of flinching or even an arched eyebrow. It must be true. She'd know otherwise.
It's good he's giving up that line of questioning, because the constant reminder that there's something wrong with her is painful. The more he digs, the more she shuts down; quietly, wordlessly, she withdraws into herself. There are some nasty cutting words on the tip of her tongue. She'll try to drown them in coffee.
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He leans forward and has to scoot his plate further to save his tie. "Public? Really? That's...weird. Is he like a celebrity? It's hard to get him to say boo about the other guy in front of Karen or anybody else. I can't imagine him dealing with everyone." Foggy shakes his head a little and looks away a minute to try and grasp the crazy.
The solid, piercing gaze beyond Verity's lenses get him at attention. "Okay. Tell me." Though now he wishes that maybe he didn't tell her to. Someone? Someone watching? That's one thing. And he--Franklin "Foggy" Percy Nelson--being considered more than a nobody? "Is...Is--? You can't tell me, can you?"
She's so pretty. Even when she is so visibly gloomy. But when she smiles, if only Matt could see her smile.
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"I understand he was very popular in San Fransisco. You know how helpful people can be if you promise them a great selfie for their efforts." She gives a little shrug before admitting, "I don't know why he did it. But you may want to steer clear of representing the people he rounds up at night."
She was going to tell him anyway. There's not much stopping her sometimes. "Is what? I don't even know what it is you think I can't tell you. I'm not a mind reader."
If only. Maybe Foggy will have to help him with that. He might give more glowing reviews of the experience.
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Not the puns! You know I hate that. :P
Ooooooooooooops ;D
#sorrynotsorry rite?
#neverrlysry
:P
X3
<3
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