applesaucedream | Saving Lives a Mile High [open to all]

Welcome to another ordinary day in Manhattan. This barely even qualifies as a dream at all, it's so like waking life. The dreamers will find that they're their own perfectly normal selves going about their perfectly normal business and thwarting perfectly normal crimes in their perfectly normal spandex outfits.

What's that? No, of course it's normal to wear spandex (or leather, for the more chic among you) and go around beating up muggers and thwarting your villainous counterparts, don't be silly. What else would you do with your afternoon, not use your superpowers to better the world? That's grossly irresponsible of you; don't you know that with great power comes great responsibility?

So get out there and make the world a better place -- and be sure not to let that disguise slip if you do make it in to work today. Wouldn't want anyone to learn your secret identity, after all.

[OOC: Characters will find themselves thrust into the role of superhero...or at least, super-powered human. Whether they'd use those powers for good or evil (or use them at all), they'll think they've always been this way (or maybe just since that time they fell in toxic waste and developed ~~cancer~~ telekinesis). Usual dream party rules apply: all players and characters welcome regardless of membership status. Characters will remember or forget the events of the dream at players' discretion.]

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B shrugs slightly, finally lifting the glass to his lips. It doesn't really matter if he likes thinking about it or not, he does. It happened. There's not really any going back.

God, he's a real downer today. Probably not at all what she was expecting - their exchanges have always been pretty light-hearted, like a game between them. Now here he is spilling his tragic backstory. Give him a mask and some judo lessons and he'd be a right brooding vigilante type, wouldn't he? Ugh.

"I used to be more hands-on," he says, leaning forward on the table and keeping his voice low. "I'm not like you, but when you know the things I know, you can make a lot of difference just by saying the right thing at the right time. Just little things. The Midwest doesn't really attract megalomaniacs like Manhattan does, you know?" He smiles tightly, but it's true; dramatic hero fights are a dime a dozen in this town. "I never even knew anyone else with powers until I found my first supervillain."

Excuse him as he puts air quotes around the phrase. Bunch of puffed-up jerks.

"There weren't really any heroes around, just me and a bunch of cops. So I thought I'd try and figure out what the guy wanted. But he - " B pauses and takes a long sip of his drink. "Well. He had time powers. There's only so much you can do when a guy just rewinds and does things over when he gets it wrong."

"Nnh, yeah," she says with a knowing nod. "That is not a fun first-time challenge. Ambitious shit." She shrugs and settles in. There's probably a lot more to this story, but she's not in a hurry, and she prefers things to be equal.

"I fucked up my first job bigtime," she says. She gestures to her arm. "S'how I lost this. You probably know that story." She gives him a faintly encouraging smile. "It's okay to have those fuckups. We all do."

He shrugs wryly, an admission that he does indeed know that story. It's common enough knowledge that he didn't even need to do anything special. Iman's not one of the secretive ones. "Well, you've bounced back." And so has he, he supposes.

"I don't...this is where it gets weird, for me. Time things, y'know; I don't remember it all too clearly." He'd gotten close enough now and again to get ideas of other timelines, perhaps, resets where other things had happened. Maybe they were true memories; maybe only musical echoes. "I got caught up in the loops, with him and his friends. I didn't even know they existed until it was too late. They wanted me to help them get it right - they'd been at it a while." They probably hadn't been quite sane for a long time before he entered the picture. People weren't really meant to go through time like that, he thinks.

Ooohh. She sees where this is going. She lifts her eyebrows and nods slowly, eyeing him with greater seriousness and sympathy.

"Shit," she says. "What... what were they trying to do? Or do you not want to talk about that part?"

Does he even remember? This is fucked up. No wonder he's such a careful recluse.

"They were - "

He pauses, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment, and then answers in a tight voice, "It doesn't matter now." It's over. It's done. B likes to think that he wouldn't have just run off and left them there to continue their work - but that doesn't matter, because he never could have escaped if they were still active. They weren't going to let him go.

There's a moment of silence, and then he shifts, deliberately relaxing his posture as he meets her gaze again. He doesn't want to dwell on things now. "I took off after it was all said and done. I couldn't...be there anymore, it'd been too long. Didn't come straight here, but it's not so hard to end up in New York."

Iman frowns a little sadly at him, seeing his obvious distress, how difficult this is to talk and think about. She reaches out to gives him a little pat on the hand.

"It's okay," she says. "I mean, relatively speaking. On a long enough timeline everything approaches neutrality. Anyway it's over now, and you don't have to talk about it. Let's fucking drink." She lifts her glass in a half-assed toast. "I'll keep your secret, you don't have to worry about me. Sorry I had to find out this way."

This clarified, she downs the rest of the glass.

B twitches a little at the pat, but it's just him being jumpy; he doesn't really mind. It's actually kinda nice.

The toast coaxes a chuckle out of him, and he raises his glass in turn. "It's not you I'm worried about." But they both know about Ocaso, and neither of them can do anything about it right this second. It'll be a while before anything more comes of that. Ocaso's a planner. No matter how much this loss angered him - and it did - he won't let that spur him into recklessness.

"I guess I'm glad it was you, if it had to be anybody. Most of the people who chase after me have no sense of humor about it." He grins a little. "Did Nick tell you about the last time he tried?"

"Probably not in enough detail," she says with a laugh. "He was pissed. Of course he's always pissed, but usually he gets his problems pretty well solved." Her smile becomes smaller and more fond. "That's how I met him, when he helped me build me this." She flexes her mechanical hand. "I have never met a guy so singularly cynical and fucking determined to succeed at literally everything."

Whoops, she got sidetracked there. Time for another drink. She signals the server.

He shakes his head wryly, grinning. "Yeah, that's why we don't get along." B is not the sort of problem to easily get solved.

This time around he's alert enough to order his own drink, though he just requests another of the same. Once the server's moved off, he continues. "It's completely my own fault. I don't have to keep at him. It's just always so interesting to see what he'll do - plus half the time he is the best man for the job." It's fun. The long and short of it is that it's fun, when he knows perfectly well that he'll be able to get away. He's always enjoyed poking the bear.

After today he might feel a little differently.

"We never get to actually finish our conversations - he always tries to sneak up on me halfway through. So I just started texting the burners after he found them. I go through more phones because of him..."

Iman laughs through his story, happy that he seems to have relaxed a bit. "I might be able to slip you some tricks to help throw him off," she says, "though you'd have to be careful so he wouldn't recognize my work."

Their drinks come and they continue chatting and sipping themselves into friendly oblivion, until the dream unravels and redeposits them elsewhere.

Saving Lives a Mile High [open to all]

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