Participants:
| Scene Title | Go To Ground |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Roboburned Monica drops in on a friend for help and good company. And an actual bed to crash in. |
| Date | May 23, 2011 |
Magnes' Apartment
Magnes is fussing around the apartment, apparently playing parts while reading from a printed out script… or something. He's in his Green Lantern t-shirt and blue jeans, knowing Elvira won't be around his place. "Has he mentioned me?" he asks himself, running his bare feet over the hard wood floors. "Yeah." "What'd he say?" "Uh… I said… he asked me what I thought about you."
He starts to switch into a more feminine voice for some of the lines. "ANd what did you say?" Then, clearing his throat, he's back to the masculine lines, "I said… uh… Spider-Man, I said uh… The great thing about MJ is… when you look in her eyes and she's looking back in yours… everything… feels… not quite normal. Because you feel stronger and weaker at the same time. You feel excited and at the same time, terrified. The truth is… you don't know what you feel except you know what kind of man you want to be. It's as if you've reached the unreachable and you weren't ready for it."
He flings a hand around, switching to his feminine tone, "You said that?" and back again, "Well, something like that."
The thing about being Monica's friend is that she doesn't tend to use phones very often. And she definitely doesn't used front doors. And she sometimes interrupts comic book themed soliloquies.
Right around the time when normal people are cozy at home in fear or respect of the curfew laws, there's a knock on Magnes' window. Monica is hanging out on the side of his building, in a somewhat ironically Spider-Man-like pose. Only the bad part is, she's very obviously having a bad night. One arm and part of her side are carrying fresh burns, and her clothes are singed and torn. Her smile is more forced than he's seen, mostly because she's trying to keep up appearances. As much as she'd like to give them impression that it's not as bad as it looks, her adrenaline ran out about a mile outside of Midtown. And the round about route here was not exactly kind.
Magnes immediately drops his papers and heads over to the window, unlocking and raising it so he can reach for her good side and help her in. The window is quickly closed and re-locked, and she can feel the weight of her burnt arm lightening dramatically. "What happened to you? This is the second time in my life a girl has unexpectedly dropped in after suffering severe burns. Tell me how bad it feels and take a seat, I'll get the kit."
As Magnes lets her in and is already on the ball, Monica lets out a relieved, but pained sigh, "Here I thought I'd have to ask for help." That lightening gets a grateful smile as she gets herself dropped onto the couch. "It's not so bad. Just hurts. I'm sorry to just drop in on you like this, but I can't… go to a doctor or anything. I didn't know who else to hide out with."
She doesn't exactly relax into her seat, but she does look better for not swinging around the city anymore. "I was in Midtown. The robots shoot fire now," she explains while trying not to clench her teeth.
"I'm pretty sure the giant crab tank shot fire. Is that one in New York yet?" Magnes asks as if he's expecting much worse, then comes back from the bathroom with the first aid kit, sitting next to her and nodding to the arm. "This is gonna burn for a second, not that it doesn't already."
Now comes the dabbing it with a ball of cotton soaked in alcohol, then he starts to apply cream to the arm and her burned side, followed by some cloth that he then begins to wrap with some white bandages. "I really wish I could do something about the robots, but if I just go out there and fight them, that won't do anything. If I'm going to make any move, if I'm going to risk something, then I have to know it's going to make a real change. If nothing else, I want the government to think I've cleaned up my act, so I can at least be a trump card. With Gillian I'm able to completely waste those robots."
"Not that I saw, but who knows. This one was morphed into a spidery thing," Monica says as she passes him her arm. "There were people there. People. Just… hanging out. In Midtown. I thought, if they're there, they must be—" Cutting off there, she makes a pained noise as her good hand grips the couch cushion while he cleans the burns. She only seems to breath again when he starts to put on the bandages.
"I thought, they must be Ferry or Messiah or something. I don't see regular people out there. So when I saw the lights, I thought for sure it was going to be one of the bots, so I went to be the diversion so everyone could get out, but then they didn't leave. Any self respecting terrorist is gonna get themselves out of there, right? But once the fire started, then people scattered." She brings her unbandaged hand to her face for a moment before she looks over at him. "We need a plan before anyone takes out the robots. A plan that makes them look like a bad idea and not like we destroyed them. I think you're doing right, playing it straight and hanging back until it's a good moment."
She does sink into the couch then, less harried, even if her arm hurts. "Think I could borrow a shirt?"
"Oh, right, uh, hold on." Magnes heads to his bedroom, but he continues talking on the way. "I've never seen a spider, that must be something new. I thought they were only using things based on the Argentina bots, but this sounds like it's getting worse…"
He walks out with a white button up shirt, holding it over to her. "Monica… is there any way I can talk you into laying low? You can stay here, I can keep you safe. Hell I've already got an illegal French immigrant staying in one room."
"Thanks," Monica says with a bit of a smile. "Well, I haven't run around the bots too often. For all my martial arts and such, it doesn't help too much with them. But, I'll ask around, see what others have run into." She takes the shirt when he comes back out, and very gingerly slips it over the bandages. She's somewhat used to taking care of herself even with wounds, so this part seems to go a little easier than it might for most.
"I try to lay low, I really do. I just sometimes have to get out and I just… have bad luck out there. Sometimes." She lifts a shoulder, though, in an almost helpless gesture. "I'm no good at sitting by. Nana says I'm too head strong for my own good which… is probably true. But. I've been thinking about heading out to the,you know. The sailing club, as they say. My s—" Wup. She pauses there, and backs up a step to rethink what she was about to say. "I think it might be my best bet. They're good at laying low and I'd still be able to do things."
"Maybe that wouldn't be bad, at least you wouldn't be on your own, but I'd still worry sick about you. If you really wanna lay low like this, and stya independent, just… I don't know, drag me along. A gravity manipulator who helped destroy the first wave of these things might be pretty handy."
He reaches over to take her bandaged arm, very carefully, looking over her hand. "I'm being selfish, I guess I just don't want you to get wrapped up in that, then I never see you like a lot of my other friends."
"And blow your cover?" Monica asks, a gentle tease in her tone. "Don't worry. I don't plan of going up against the bots any time soon. But if I do, I'll give you a call first." There's a glance down at her arm, a frown turning her lips down. "Probably not going up against anything for a little while."
She looks back to him when he takes her arm, letting him have a look over the damage. "Hey," she says a little softer, "You won't get rid of me so easy. I don't… really have many friends. I mean, I got people I work with, but I was never very good at getting close to people. Peyton was the closest thing I had for a while, but I haven't even seen her in months. So if you don't mind the company… I'll just keep dropping in your windows."
"You can crash here until you recover, I can cook, and if the government drops in you won't just be a sitting duck with your arm like that." Magnes lowers her hand, though he doesn't let it go when he looks up to her from it. "Peyton's fine, I'm just not allowed to tell anyone where she is. And… I don't really mind having you as a friend, I mean, there was a song and everything."
"That's sweet've you. I'll try not to bring them down on your head. And hey. I'm not a total sitting duck. I can kick butt with either hand. Promise." When he mentions knowing where Peyton is, her smile drops again but not because of any upset. Just surprise. "She's okay? She's okay. That's… That's good to hear. Can you see her? Can you tell her I'm thinking of her?" She does notice that he doesn't let her hand go, and it does make her smile crookedly. "There was a song. I remember," she notes, lifting an eyebrow at him.
"I'll let her know the next time I'm out there." Magnes starts to smile a bit himself, though for once he's not being totally awkward, not since the trip. "So, why don't you tell me about how you grew up? I mean, you've told me some things, but I don't know much about your life before all of this."
"Oh," Monica says, surprised all over again by the question. "Ah. Well, it was just kinda normal. New Orleans. My mom, Nana, Damon and me. Sometimes we'd visit D.L. and his mom and then his family later, up in Vegas. It was just life. School and church and an after school job. My favorite memories are just… like, when my mom would play the piano. She was really good at it."
There's a little sniff, just a brief one, as Monica looks in another direction for a moment. "We were all just… happy. And simple. I know for New York it was the Midtown Man that changed everything, but for New Orleans, it was Katrina. We all had to start over and that was pretty rough." It's an understatement, but there's the sense that she's just not sure what to say about it all. At least, not without crying. "I don't know, Magnes. I just… I had a nice childhood, before everything. What about you? I don't know about your story, either."
"I think it's nice, to have the memories, and I think that while life may be hard for all of us, there's no reason we can't try to make the best of the moments we have, I think it's what all of our families would want. But I know you'll always miss it, and that's good, you should never forget your past, and what you're fighting for." Magnes closes her hand into both of his now, a little bit of extra reassurance.
He has to pause for a moment when she asks him for his story, and averts his eyes for a brief moment before returning to her's. "My childhood was… mixed. I didn't have any friends, and I didn't even know I had siblings until recently. I had to stay in the house, my parents didn't want me to be influenced by anyone else. I was raised to think the most fun thing in the world were flash cards, though other family members would sometimes give me gifts, that's how I got into comics, and skating. When I was a teen I started to sneak out, not to do anything bad, just to go to skate parks and stuff, and then Midtown happened and my parents disappeared."
His hold on her hand loosens a bit, and his eyes begin to drift down. "I lived in the pizza shop and learned to cook from Mister Panucci, I didn't learn until after Operation Apollo that my parents didn't disappear, they abandoned me. My father said it was because they considered me a failure."
"Yeah. I'm glad to have the memories. And my family's always been close. Lately, it's been a lot easier to remember what we're fighting for, with the dreams and all, huh?" Monica smiles a little there, but as he explains about his past, the smile drifts away and her forehead furrows in belated concern. Her good hand comes over to rest on top of his. "I'm sorry, Magnes. That's an awful thing for him to say. For them to do. But you know what? You became a good person anyway. And obviously not from their influence. If they consider that a failure, they've got their priorities switched up."
"I'm glad I have people like you to tell me that." Magnes goes a little silent, thumb beginning to run over the back of her hand while he watches her, the gears turning in his brain. "Oh, um, you can use my bedroom tonight, I'm fine on the couch. The couch would be bad for your arm. Just don't mind all the geeky posters in there."
Then more silence, and he just waits for her response.
"Well, that's what friends are for," Monica says, although there's a little concern there as he goes silent. "Oh, I don't might geeky anything, but you don't have to give up your room. A couch is about ten times better than the sleeping bag I been using and not to mention, I slept on rooftops for a few months when I was totally off grid. So. The couch is like a luxury resort right now."
"I won't take no for an answer. I can't in good faith make a woman sleep on a couch when there's a perfectly good bed. I'll be fine, I mean, I float when I sleep anyway, I won't exactly get a cramp on this thing." Magnes, for once, has completely forgotten that Yana exists, that tends to happen when Monica is around, which is saying something since he certainly mentions Monica to Yana.
He's silent again, but this time he actually manages to say what's on his mind, and has a surprising lack of stumbling over his words. "I don't wanna be that Looney Tunes skunk or anything, but…" There's another pause, and he's soon shaking his head. "Nevermind, sorry, are you hungry?"
"You float in your sleep?" Monica can't help but smile there, even as she muses, "Gosh, I hope I don't do kung fu in my sleep. That could get dangerous." There's just a little pause before she lets out a sigh, though. "Alright, I will let you be chivalrous this one time, but only because I'm wounded and real tired and arguing might just make me pass out altogether."
Her hand lifts to ruffle his hair when he stops himself, and she starts to stand to her feet. "I don't think I could eat just now, but lets plan on breakfast? I really feel like laying down and not moving for about twelve hours. But I can cook some mean french toast, even one handed."
"Yeah, alright, we can make an awesome breakfast tomorrow. And sleep as long as you want, I don't have a window back there, so you don't have to worry much about people jumping into the room suddenly. I'll be out here." Magnes lays back on the couch, watching as she walks to the room. He finds himself swallowing, wanting to say things, but for once his brain isn't registering whatever he's feeling, so he simply remains silent, again.
"You're on," Monica says as far as breakfast. "I'll give a shout if I need anything, and hey. Thanks, Magnes. I appreciate you helping me out." and she does walk back to his room, pausing just a moment to wave back in his direction before she closes the door. There is, however, the distinct sound of a groan before she crawls into bed and passes right out. It's been a long night.