Athwart History (Closed)

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

"Good to see you made it home, didn't get eaten." Jenna teased with a laugh, her pizza appearing on her plate and the ball caught in a blur, silencing the woodpecker noise.

"Uh yep! Washed all the dust out of my clothes and brought home pizza, if you want. Didn't know what kind you liked, so I stuck with cheese." Courtesy of Tony's, pizza supplier to two heroes now. That'd probably make good advertising.

She popped to her knees on the couch excitedly, dropping the toy at her side on the cushions. "Oh man, I almost forgot about League day-we used to have parties in school, those were awesome! But uh, no-"

She glanced over at the cake, then back. "I stopped a guy from blowing up a bakery once, and so they're always trying to stuff me full of cake. People are...people are really glad I am back, ya know? I think I accidentally had them worrying..." She felt that flush of guilt all over again. A lot of things had been revealed, much of what she thought was and wasn't had changed, but at least South Bend felt the same. That hadn't changed, and she was more resolved than ever to keep on keeping on there no matter what else she got into.

South Bend needed a Velocity, and Velocity needed South Bend.

"They liked having you visit. I mean, you are Adamant. The folks at Allie's Bakery made you a cake to commemorate your visit and made me promise to deliver it to you with their regards. And you just don't turn down free cake made for your friends, ya know?"

Jenna beamed at him. "So consider yourself caked by the best bakery in South Bend!"

 

[Obuzeti]

"Shit, ain't nobody saying no to cheese. Good call," Elias says, and ambles over to grab himself a slice, then chokes when she mentions actual parties. He waves it off and finishes his bite, gives her a dubious look, and lets it go.

"Didn't Nergal punt me through a cakeshop?" He wonders. "Or was that ice cream? I remember tasting a lot of sprinkles either way. Or maybe that was the fucking spider."

He shrugs it off and takes another bite of the pizza. "Either way, I'm glad to eat their food. There's a local cafe-slash-resturant up in Chicago that I used to take League people out to eat at all the time. We ate half price so long as we ate in costume. It was hilarious - also, we never had to schedule interviews or shit like that because everybody knew where we ate lunch."

Elias grins across the living room, and levers himself up from the armchair to plop himself down beside Jenna (the couch bounces under his weight - literally bounces, like it's got truck-rated suspension) and ruffles her hair with his non-pizza hand. "You put yourself into a community, let them know who you are and what you invest in them as a whole, and they'll respond," he says. "People do it for me up here. South Bend is yours just the same. They'll take no substitutes."

There's a bit of silence as he eats his slice of pizza. He's no barbarian. He doesn't talk while his mouth is full.

"Talked to some of my old crew, trying to get them to stay in touch with each other," he says, musing. "Caught Lana in the middle of a business meeting. May have pissed off her king a little. Business as usual, there."

Admittedly, he's just trying to get Jenna to do a spit-take here.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

He'd come in looking pretty ragged, so Jenna was glad to have something on offer for him. He looked tired, much more tired than he had before his visit with Protagonist. She imagined he probably had to be pretty serious.

Wonder how she took the cat.

"I spirited you into an ice cream shop." Jenna remembers, a touch more serious as she remembered her panicked response to his being speared clean through the chest. She makes a face, a telltale wrinkle of her nose and a narrowing of her dark eyes. "That thing did not taste like sprinkles." She asserts in full disbelief. Blech! No way had it!

She hadn't given an interview yet. She's talked to cops and the commissioner a bunch, but not the press until today really. It made sense to her to be low key about it-chat over lunch rather than anything terribly formal, so that sounded cool.

The couch bounces and Jenna with it, the kid all of a hundred pounds soaked-only for him to ruffle her hair and offer some words of encouragement. Jenna smiled, content. She was lucky to have her city. Laura's city.

She feels proud to have earned their approval.

"Talked to some of my old crew,"

"Oh yeah?" Business, and hopefully good business-she's psyched to be part of things, see the ball start rolling. Gearing up for the Good Fight.

"Caught Lana in the middle of a business meeting. May have pissed off her king a little."

"Wait, wha-? What King? Who's King?" The name sounds familiar but she can't place it fast enough, tripping up on the King part. "What's her handle-wait Lana! Deep Blue Lana! That Lana!" She's in Laura's files! More than that-there had been a photo of the two of them in a desk drawer, younger years.

"Isn't that like, her dad though? How'd it go?"

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias shrugs. "I'm no magician, but I've had an awful lot of it pointed at me. It almost always comes off as synesthesia, where your brain tries to process something it literally doesn't have the faculties for into familiar sensory information. If you remember Abradius, from the West Coast - dressed up like a stage magician, could swap objects and produce small ones at will - if he popped you from one place to another, you'd see everything in shades of orange for about half a minute. Marrane's magic tastes oily-sweet. Stuff like that."

He points a finger-gun at Jenna for her recognition. "Yeah, Deep Blue Lana - my bad, I always just call my people by their names. Never really got the, uh, conscious dissociation stuff. Anyways, I called her in the middle of a meeting and got off three swears before she could hustle out of the room, so I'd say that's diplomacy properly accomplished, right there."

Elias actually looks proud. "Pissed him off, I bet."

He holds that expression for a bit, then it slides into a milder, more satisfied expression. "Also, the angrier he is, the more likely he is to want to talk to me directly, rather than just ordering Lana to cut ties with me by fiat. She can argue with him some but that's a bad position for her to be in. I'd prefer he be angry at me than her. I don't have to live with him."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

"Oof. Dads can be challenging enough, can't imagine one who's also a king." She says it easily enough, airily flippant-but her mind is on her own father and his disapproval and disappointment, the way he'd hung the phone up on her.

It gnaws at her heart and she's quick to distract herself from it. She's had a good day, she doesn't want to spoil it. Elias needs pep, not mopiness!

"Lana came up the first time though. I'm sure he didn't like that much, but she did it anyway. She might not need you to soak up his ire, is what I'm saying. Or even be willing to let you, I mean."

Visions of the red haired merwoman wielding her badass trident fill her head, an excitement to maybe get to meet her. "It's cool you would though." He was really pulling his friends together, his family. A natural born leader-maybe someday everything could be like it was, like it should be.

"She spent her teen years up on land, didn't she? Her and Miss Laura were on the same junior team I think."

 

[Obuzeti]

"I understand it's much the same, except where violating your curfew is actually illegal," Elias observes, dry. "That, and the more power you have, the harder it is to make meaningful friends. Probably why she liked the Atlantic Front so much, which does in fact segue into your next question."

"The Front was a bunch of misfits, honestly, but they had each other's backs one hundred percent. None of them were really socialized except Invicibelle - you would have loved her, just a wholesome girl all around, heart of the crew. Good people though. Marie and Lana, if you can believe it, were the healthiest out of the entire crew after her, which says a lot."

Adamant leans back in his chair and chews on his lip as he counts. "It was always a small group. Lana, Marie, Gideon, Anhinga, Anthrope, Livewire, and Invincibelle. Almost all of them went down during Immolation. I think it's just the first three, these days, and Gideon's always been a recluse. I think he's camped out in a doomsday bunker somewhere, was always surprised he'd put it off for another week."

Gideon had been a small man, wiry, with a bulbous stare and an incessant twitch that made him look like a jonesing addict of some kind. He hated people - hated them - with a complete, black fury that he had never explained to anyone, but had allowed Marie to sympathize and direct him to some degree. He'd never cared to listen to anyone else and had apparently vanished underground immediately following the big blowdown.

"I've always wondered what Atlantis is like," Elias muses. "You know, all this time I worked with Lana and I've never gone. Not that they're big on visitors, in the first place."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

The hostile threat to Protagonist's...er, Marie's tone and the way her expression had shifted to straight malice the other day, chasing her off-made her life flash before her eyes, no joke. Jenna can't imagine what the others were like if they were really worse.

But she knew Miss Lana would be cool. Had to be! She'd been such good friends with Laura!

As for visiting Atlantis...

"I can't decide if an underwater expedition sounds super cool or super claustrophobic." Jenna muses back, fiddling with the paddleball board she'd slipped between the cushions. "It's a whole 'nother world underwater...like space. I read about all the work that goes into diving certs, and cave diving-holy crap. Even a submarine or ship won't save you if things go wrong." Jenna side eyed him. "Unless like, you can breathe water or...something..."

Never know.

"I'd probably still do it." The young heroine decides with a nod after 'serious' consideration. She would too-she was up for anything at least the one time.

 

[Obuzeti]

"Naw," Adamant says dismissively. "The pressure's no problem for me, but I do need oxygen. If I go too long underwater I pass out and float back to the surface eventually just like anyone else."

He considers for a moment then shakes his head. "It'd be rude for me to just drop in on Lana like that, right after I've contacted her for the first time in ages. I'm impulsive, sure, but not a dick. Marie's probably going to be busy tomorrow too. You want to take a trip out and see a couple other old friends of mine from the Pacific Concord? I'm thinking Rowan and Maestro in particular."

Rowan remains semi-active, crafting masterpieces in his chosen wood and making a living off their sales, though his injury in a supersized wildfire had left him reclusive and prone to isolation. Maestro would be harder to track down, as his powers were both less showy and easier to conceal out of use, but he had a couple of decent guesses.

"We could stop in, check on your folks if you want," he adds, without glancing over, looking at the fire. Knowing Jenna, she'd been trying on her own, but - that was a hard question to have to answer to someone else. Knowing something would be better than nothing, he guesses, but honestly Elias only knows the bare minimum of what it's like to grow up with a family. Mostly that it's important.

All he can do is make the offer.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

"I bet she's going to call back soon anyhow." Jenna says cheerfully, wrapping and unwrapping the ball and string around the paddle board handle. "Or visit!" That'd be super cool-go where? See other heroes?!

Rapt attention as she straightened up off the couch with a start, one of those unabashed grins. "Heck yes I do! I'm up for meeting heroes any time, all the time."

"We could stop in, check on your folks if you want."

Jenna froze up, her buoyant energy and excitement palpably deflating as she too turned her gaze on the flames.

"I uh...well..." Man.

"...I know Tectonic tried to put a reasonable spin on it, but what happened in the Tower after Michigan...the way Cid and him ganged up on me, how the keycard stopped working and I couldn't leave...that was fucked up." She doesn't sound quite as certain as she wanted to feel, but the whole thing was just...wrong. She was still sorting the office ambush out, but for sure she'd been essentially held against her will after. If it weren't for Miss Sarah, she'd probably STILL be there.

"But it REALLY didn't help things with my folks-sent my mother into a panic and solidified everything my dad doesn't like about me being Velocity. I mean-maybe, he still won't talk to me." Jenna's expression made it clear how much that was bothering her, hurting her. She clearly wanted his approval. "I love my dad Elias. It's no good doing this to him. To either of them. But...well, you know what it's like. I can't not be Velocity."

She toyed with the paddle board, staring into space. This was the kind of mopy stuff he doesn't need. She doesn't need it either. "Before I was outed, it was easier. That's why the secret identities, at least...mine. Then everything that happened happened, and he just-I don't know. He wasn't happy. They weren't happy, but he straight up cut me off. I can't get him to talk to me so long as I'm still donning my goggles and running around out there, like I want to be, like I -got- to be-it's been months."

Hopeless.

And she sure didn't like feeling hopeless.

Jenna ran a hand through her shiny black hair, filling her cheeks with air and blowing her hair out of her eyes again. "But you know, I'm his daughter. His little girl or whatever. But maybe if you talked to him...I mean, there's legitimacy there, right? He'd have to talk to me then, right? Or at least, think about talking to me, how stubborn can you get?" Pretty stubborn, she knows. But heck, if anyone could make headway, it'd be Adamant. He'd even gotten Tectonic to cool his jets, least for a minute.

Yeah, could help.

"Not to...not to put that on you, and not to have it in the way of more important things, cape things, cool things." What kind of lame-o mask was worried about mommy and daddy's approval? Jeez.

...this one.

"But you know, maybe sometime. If nothing else, hey, could meet my mom." Jenna's little smile kind of sad even if it was a glitter of mirth, throwing a bit of humor into things. "She's a nice lady." A bit of a laugh and then the paddle board was in motion again, a blur of the ball and that woodpecker sound.

Oddly...she feels slightly better about it. Mostly-she's got to beat her record.

Jenna Paige wasn't really the brooding type.

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias snorts. "I can't blame your folks for being wary of Cid, that's just good fucking sense. If that's all they know, of course they're going to be scared. That's why I want to go with you. They need to know you've got people behind you. You're in danger on this lifestyle - but you don't do it alone, and you fight with and for people that'd lay down their lives to see you safe."

He stands up and pops his neck, then ambles over to where Jenna is still toying with the paddle ball. He loops one hand under her knees and one on her shoulder, then just lifts the smaller woman up entirely and bearhugs her, warm and solid. His scent is oak and clean steel, and the paddleball smothers against his chest and is still. "You're one of mine, Jenna. Let me clarify that: you're family to me. You can stay here as long as you want, and whenever you put that mask on, and whenever you don't, you've got me at your back. I do the crimefighting gig, sure, but that's just a job. It's all of you I move for, I fight for, get up in the morning for. All of us weirdos that have the God-given ability to push so much farther, and ask so much more of yourselves."

Elias sets Jenna down, and his smile is clear and real and unashamed. "I ain't fighting with my in-laws. We'll go talk to them first thing tomorrow, alright? The rest can wait until after."

For all the evils and injustice in the world, it is at his doorstep they stop. Whatever and wherever else, first his own household he secures. Elias can't help but think that the world would be a better place if everyone loved their own people first and foremost, and looked outwards after. It's why he feels, these days, so much more alive, after a decade of silence and stagnation. In turning away from his own, Elias lost his center.

Things are different, now.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

At the start, Jenna Paige had been living a double life. There had been her real life with papers and coffee and quick friendships and romances in a new city at her dream school, the safe harbor back at home with her parents-and then there had been Velocity's patrols and cheeky one liners in her off time, a careful mental separation, a part she played. When the two identities crashed in on each other and she lost a lot of what had previously defined her-well...she had been lonely. And she'd never really had the experience to feel alone before.

Her mind flashed on some of the scarier spots she had found herself in since and the betrayal in the actions of men she thought she could trust, people who were supposed to be the best of them-and then she thought of how Elias was in contrast, warm, friendly and accepting of her and everything she was working towards, no ulterior motives or agenda, just exactly what he said, when he said it. Called her family, scooped her up in a big ole hug nobody could fake if they wanted to.

"I ain't fighting with my in-laws. We'll go talk to them first thing tomorrow, alright? The rest can wait until after."

Jenna burst into tears. It was alarmingly sudden but not entirely distressing because-of all things-she was also laughing. "Oh no, haha, sorry-" She felt relieved, guilty, and free all at the same time. She probably looked like a crazy person. She is a bit of a crazy person. Jenna makes quick use of the collar of her pajama shirt, shaking her head as she tries to quell the sudden spiked jumble of emotions. "Sorry-I just, you-you're like this big brother a-and-" Jeez.

Jeez.

The little thing pops off the couch to hug him, a blink from couch to giant-and hugs as tight as she can despite the comical size difference. "Tomorrow." She agrees, grateful, relieved, and-more like herself than she's felt in a long time.

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias smiles. If his eyes are a little wet, he doesn't make mention of it. "I get you," he says, simply. "It's good to have people in your corner."

His broad hands cups Jenna's face, and his thumb smooths away the trails of tears where they've collected in the corner of her eyes. "This is the nadir, hon. Things get better from here. We've all hit our lowest points, and there's nowhere to go but up now. All we've got to do is hold on tight, and climb."

He brings her back in for another squeeze, then lets go and nods up to the staircase where he stays in the loft. "I'm going to go turn in, kid. I've had a lot of shit happen today, good shit, and I am going to sleep the sleep of the dearly unconscious. You tuck in too. Wake me up in the morning, we'll go and catch your folks. Alright?"

Elias smiles one last time and then ambles up to his room, certain for once that he is actually going to sleep; secure that he's fulfilled his ambit, taken care of his people as best he can. The blankness of slumber beckons him to rest as it hasn't in a decade, and for once he has faith that nothing ill will happen before he wakes again.

It's a good feeling to have.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

The neat little rows of houses and prim lawns were reminiscent of 1950's America, built after the war to house the families of servicemen stationed in or out of the former Naval base nearby. A grandfather she had never met served there, as well as her own father long before she was born. Jenna had chattered about that and her parents meeting, about her grandmother once chasing her father out of the house, of that same grandmother's cooking and general loving sassiness, of her passing a few years before.

Of how her parents had abruptly moved from her childhood home to her grandmother's in the Phillipines at her urging.

"I wanted them to be safe." Jenna murmured. "I didn't know how to fully sort out Mindmelt's attack, but I knew he knew who I was and what mattered to me, where they were. And if he was working with Rush-well, her possibly knowing where they were was a heart attack on a stick."

Jenna wasn't wearing her costume. If anything, she looked a bit like she was heading to church-a button down tan colored blouse with little embroidered flowers on the collar was tucked into a dark brown skater's skirt, a bit of flare and swish when she moved. Black tights and brown flats with a bit of a copper sheen to them, a matching copper colored barrette pulling her sleek black hair away from her face on the right side, a pair of sunglasses shading her eyes.

Just a young woman out for a stroll-with a giant of a companion. It was later in the evening however-the twelve hour time difference meant it was past dinner time in the suburb-so they weren't catching much notice.

Jenna felt more than a little nervous. She'd just been here, but it felt like a long time ago-she'd raced here in a hurry from the tower to assure her parents she wasn't dead-and only been able to comfort her mother, barely catching a glimpse of her father disappearing into and staying in the den. Before then, well...she'd been kind of busy. And nervous about the silence. She had called of course, but he hadn't come to the phone. Her mother spoke for both of them and promised he'd 'come around.'

She has no idea if today would go any better than last week as they turned the corner on her grandmother's old road. Hoped so, but was prepared to go home empty handed...again.

But it meant a lot to her Elias had come out.

"Okay." She was steeling herself some as she removed her sunglasses, paused at the end of a short drive. It was a small, simple little house with an open front porch and a flower garden, whimsical little wind chimes and garden gnomes, ceramic cats. It looked comforting, like a grandmother's house should. There was even an old Buick on the cracked pavement of the drive-she's not sure if they were driving that or not.

"Okay. I uh...not going to lie, feeling like I need a game plan to knock on the dang door-that's dumb. That's super dumb." But Jenna didn't move. "My mom'll be happy to see us." Jenna's eyes flicked from the screen door to the lit windows towards the left of the house. "And she'll know what sort of mood Dad's in." She mumbled.

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias, of course, doesn't dress up. Wherever he goes as a civilian, it's in boots, denim, and a bomber jacket: he probably has like a dozen copies of that exact outfit somewhere in the Coulee. As someone who never really separated his civilian identity from his superhero persona, it's a unique statement: his 'civilian' costume, more or less. The implications aren't great, if you think about them; here, though, it's a towering statement of support, Elias putting on the duds to have Jenna's back.

He claps a hand on her shoulder. "You can beat up a villain," Elias murmurs, "But family, you have to live with. Of course you're nervous. You should be; they matter to you. Just remember that means that your family is worth fighting for, and that this is worth doing."

Elias rolls his shoulders, like he's preparing to pick up something heavy (what would he even consider heavy, anyways?) and ambles up to the door, where he carefully knocks on it twice, then takes a step back to stand beside Jenna, instead of in front of her.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

A curtain in the picture window to their right moved slightly-a bare hint of a face there before a woman even tinier than Jenna opened the door wide with a relieved word in Tagalog-and moved for a very tight hug before Jenna even finished her 'Surprise!'.

At first glance Tala Paige didn't look old enough to be the mother of a twenty one year old-an older sister maybe, but definitely not a woman in her late forties. It seemed Jenna's bane of looking younger than she was would later be a boon, much as it often vexed her now.

Closer inspection did reveal a few telltale lines near the corners of the woman's eyes, a wisp or two of grey in the long dark hair braided down her back-and an air of anxious worry about her. Add that to the glance she cast up at Elias-there was a hint of concern there, a protective streak-definitely a mother's appraisal.

Tala was more concerned with proper greetings than mysterious male visitors however. Tala stepped back a moment, her small hands on either of Jenna's slight shoulders. Looking her over as if for damage or...who knew what else before pulling her daughter back in for another tight, clingy hug. "No call, no text-I not even have your coffee!"

"That's why it's a surprise!" Jenna managed in a suspiciously cheery way-someone trying to charm their way out of trouble. She returned the second hug before trying to help wiggle free, her face burning a little. "And I brought-"

"Your friend! Ah-" Tala released Jenna (mostly, she still had a hand on her shoulder) to look up at the much taller hero. Despite her puzzled glance mere moments before, she now smiled brightly at him, a genuine sort of warmth and welcome as she made a sweeping motion to the door. "Come in, come in! Tea?"

The house was neat and homey, but at the same time somewhat...minimalistic. There were old pictures here and there on the walls, sepia toned photos of long passed relatives-and newer school photos of Jenna, or maybe her mother-it was honestly difficult to tell until the former appeared to have gotten braces at some point-that made identification a little easier.

The dining area and the kitchen were connected, old wooden floor boards meeting aging but clean tiles. The stove was gas and older than all of them, a modern, new looking fridge jarring with the aesthetics.

Tala pulled out a chair for Elias and indicated it for him-then busied herself with the aforementioned tea. She sparred a glance through the simple arched hallway that led further into the shallow house-and seemed to move even faster.

Jenna was her spitting image-her russet toned, bronze skin was a shade or two lighter, her eyes slightly more round-but the shape of her face, her nose, her build, even her hairline-the apple had not fallen far from the tree at all despite the mixed heritage. She was just as slim as her daughter, a little less athletic looking and more waifish-wearing a comfortable pink t shirt and lacy white overalls cut into shorts.

There was even something familiar about the woman's energy...but where Jenna was barely contained, bubbling exuberance, Ms. Paige seemed to be all anxious neurosis with a smothering warmth for good measure.

"So uh, Mom-"

"Like the green tea? The black?" Tala asked Elias from her place in the kitchen, already at work. "Jenna, your friend like lemon cookie?" "Er, I don't know-Elias?"

But Jenna's mind was not on cookies. "Mom, I was really hoping to talk to Dad."

Tala paused mid reach into a cupboard, frowning. Slowly, she returned to her task-finding a platter, finding a package of lemon cookies, napkins...she glanced to the archway again as she brought the platter to the table, retrieved several small tea cups from a china cabinet against the wall.

"Coming home?" Tala inquired quietly, slightly hopeful-but also knowing better.

"Mom." It was clear from her tone that they had talked about this before. Maybe a lot of times before.

The older woman glanced to Elias, then the cookies-opening the package and pouring them onto the fanciful, faded platter. "Not good day today, I don't think."

The teakettle screamed, and Tala hurried back to it. Jenna dejectedly swiped a cookie, sinking into a seat herself. When her mother returned, dutifully doling out tea bags and carefully pouring the hot water into the cups, neither looked at the other.

"But I ask him for you." Tala finally murmured as the last of the cups filled. "Thank you." Tala squeezed her shoulder, returned the tea kettle, and disappeared through the archway, taking a left out of the hall.

Jenna chewed on her cookie, eyes on the archway. "I figure it's a fifty fifty shot, I dunno." She said, looking over her half eaten cookie. It tasted like sand for some reason.

"Ah, no, not good day." Tala was back, looking a mixture of apologetic and alarmed. "We go outside."

Jenna blinked, her disappointed expression shifting to mild confusion, caught off guard . "What?"

"Outside outside, flowers-" She was pulling on Jenna's chair, had one of her hands-was ushering her out the back screen door, chattering away in Tagalog and Jenna responding in kind. Despite the other language, she sounded bewildered and then exasperated.

"Be right back Elias, sorry-" And out they both went.

Silence in the little house, for a moment.

And then a chair groaned in the next room.

//////////////////////////////////////

Ronnie Paige was not at all built like his delicate wife and daughter. Everything Tala was he seemed to be the exact opposite: big, barrel chested with a bit of a 'dad's belly', he looked like a dancing bear compared to her gymnast build, with forearms that, while not quite as strong as his boxing days, still held some muscle mass. His pale skin had a bit of tan, but also a bit of a sunburn across his nose, a ruddy complexion.

He looked his age, maybe even a bit beyond it-thinning reddish blonde hair and a short beard and mustache with more and more grey every time he chanced on a mirror. Muddy hazel eyes were lined and shadowed, nowhere near as expressive as the rest of his family's. No energy to this guy-he was a stabilizing force, not a motivating one.

He exited the hallway and moved straight into the kitchen area, initially ignoring the man attached to the male voice he had heard. He retrieved a can of Coke from the refrigerator, glancing out the little window over the sink, glancing at the garden and his girls.

He pops the can and turns around to take in Elias. Ron did not look happy to see him there. "Ronnie Paige." He introduces flatly, given the chattier members of his family were currently outside.

He's damned tired, but hell if he was taking this lying down.

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias looks down at the chair with dismay. It was clearly purchased with the members of this family in mind, for normal-sized people, which is already a problem for him. That's not considering how just purely fucking dense Adamant is, more than any human has a right to be, and he doesn't really want to start off meeting Jenna's parents by breaking their furniture. "I'd really hate to ruin a nice chair by sitting in it, missus Paige," he demurs.

He lets the family fret. This is familiar to him, honestly: the conversations not had, the silences that can ruin a family that doesn't know how to fix the gaps in their hearts. Most of the League, the younger members, had faced similar situations, and though it's never easy, precisely, he knows how to walk this path.

Ronnie is like night and day compared to the women of his family, which makes sense. That much neurosis needs a balance, a weight to hold it steady, and even at a glance this is a man solid like bedrock. Elias nods to him, then tries the tea.

It's fucking terrible.

Elias's face twitches at the amount of sugar in the tea, and swallows it carefully. If anything, it makes him worry more; for all that Jenna had brought delicious home cooking that first day of panic when she'd abandoned the Tower, this is the product of nearly panic-attack levels of stress. He bites his lip, sets the cup down, and turns to look at Ronnie.

Then he sighs.

"Mister Paige," he says quietly, "Go outside and hug your daughter. Or if you're not the hugging sort, say something to acknowledge she's here. She needs to know this is still her home, even if you don't agree with her. She needs to know she's still got a family."

It's a hell of a thing to open up with, and not at all what he'd intended to say. But in this room with an angry old man, and his daughter who he's chased out of the house of her youth, intentionally or not - Elias finds he's mostly just tired too, the exhaustion resonating in the air with his bones.

This ain't about him, and though Jenna asked him here to speak, it seems like this family should already know the words to say to close what's opened up between them.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

"This is the mother in law's place." Ronnie pointed out flatly. "Our home's in Virginia, in the house we raised her in and where I planned to retire. I'm not keeping her from either place."

He takes a sip of the soda, trying to mentally calculate just how old this man was. Too old, that was for sure. "Your poster is still up in her room." There's a bit of...judgement there, sounded like.

He resists the urge to look out into the garden again. He wasn't angry with Jenna-though he was sure she thought he was, and Halwell had about confirmed it. He wasn't sure he had it in him to be angry with her. It's no easier on him to be essentially estranged.

This guy however, this man showing up out of the ether and chastising him like he knew anything-that irked him. He can't half believe the nerve-or his own folly. Of course this was happening. On top of everything else attempting to raise his blood pressure, this.

He started for the archway again, but not to check out. "She thinks I'm angry, then." He says to continue the conversation, tabling his ire and his suspicion for the moment, a motion for him to follow.

The den was dated-an old woman's sitting room, flower print couch, lace doilies, kitten plates-the works. An out of place, new recliner was wedged in the corner beside it, an end table with a pile of newspapers stacked in front of it, a scrapbook of some kind with a blue cover. The television was on but muted, and had been since the first knock at the door.

"I'm not." He really does not look happy though. Maybe that was just his resting expression...?

He lifts the remote and turns the television off, sits on the edge of the recliner. He may not be angry with Jenna, but he sure as shit wasn't currently a fan of this guy.

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias shrugs and doesn't contradict the point, which is a stupid one. You don't have to say anything to make someone unwelcome. Ignoring them will make the same point soon enough.

He doesn't know what to say about the poster though. He tries to take the fame in stride, but it's hard. Less so for Elias than others - his lack of a past meant everything had to run through him, instead of harassing a hometown or a family - but still awkward at times. "She was up in Gary rounding up a set of crooks when I came across her. Clean work, no major injuries, no mishaps. If I had known the Docks would blow up that bad, I never would have taken a rookie up there," Elias admits with a grimace. "You have my word on that. Nergal and Jew were a lot more vicious than I've ever given them credit for before."

Elias looks out the window at the two women, at the stress lines on Tala's face and the shadows beneath Jenna's eyes, and then shrugs. "Anger's a lot easier to fight against," he says. "Disappointment sets in like infection. I don't know precisely what the nature of your argument with her is, but it's eaten at her as long as I've known her. I don't like picking fights from second hand sources either. Figured I'd come up here and see what the matter is."

He'd learned enough about picking fights when you didn't know enough from the mess with Cid. Cover your bases, and know your opponent, or get outflanked. At the very least, this man doesn't come off as immediately contemptible, but that statement - that he's not angry - makes Adamant itch under his skin. It sounds like that asshole's logic, though for know he's giving the benefit of the doubt.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Ronnie's expression softens, the man looking away and to his left, the stack of newspapers, the blue book. "I'm not disappointed, either." He amends and for a moment-it was a clear his resolve was not as hardened as it first appeared.

"...I'm concerned." That was an understatement, a softer expression than what he really was, what he wouldn't admit to being-afraid. Ronnie looks...old suddenly. Defeated. He clearly doesn't entirely know what to do, what action to take.

"I aged six years in the six days she was radio silent. Tala was inconsolable...I know that has little to do with you." Except Jenna was apparently now staying with him. His jaw tightens a moment, then relaxes again as he exhales.

"Every parent wants better for their kid than what they had. I gave 25 years to the military, served proudly-but I didn't want that for my daughter. And if the Association is at all structured similarly...I can't see Jenna dutifully following orders, toeing the line. Looks like there's friction there, and being sequestered..." The politics and specifics are beyond him. He leaves it alone.

"I didn't want her in that city in the first place." The overly protective father reveals tiredly. "Her mother definitely didn't. But she'd worked hard to get the grades and the transfer credits, it was her dream school, she wanted to be a lawyer-and I thought, 'This is better than what I had. She's a smart girl. She'll be alright.'"

He pulls the blue covered book onto his lap. "Then she stopped coming home on her off weekends. Her mother fretted, but I knew she was busy with her studies. I figured she had a boyfriend she didn't want me knowing about, something to that effect. In hindsight, her not being excited for a new heroine, one in her own city-I should have probably picked up on that."

He shakes his head.

"I don't entirely understand her powers or how they came about. My daughter is not good at subterfuge, I don't understand how she balanced this secret double life for as long as she did. What I do know is one day I get a call and she's a mess. Bawling her eyes out. My bubbly, silly little girl-downright hysterical and insistent I and her mother get out of town. I had no idea what to think. Gang? Psycho ex? Drugs? Zero."

His jaw tightens again as he remembers that long ago phone call, his feeling of powerlessness miles and miles away from one of two things that mattered to him, the anger at that powerlessness.

"I put my wife on a plane and then I made the nine hour drive to South Bend in seven. She wasn't answering her phone. Campus police tell me she's not in her dorm room. I find out she missed the rest of her classes the day she called me, didn't turn up for work. There's a psychopath running loose in the city, but my daughter works in a coffee shop, not a bank. I didn't think it had anything to do with me or her. I was wrong."

Mistress Rush. Thief. Speedster. Murderer.

"When the news broke, I was in the police station, trying to bully them into opening a missing persons case before the 48 hour window...you have no idea what it was like, learning Velocity's identity alongside all those cops...and that that psychopathic woman was gunning for her." He didn't sleep that night, or the next three-not until the immediate danger was over. Not until she won.

And then he'd flown home to console his wife.

He opens the scrapbook. It wasn't anything pretty-just collected newspaper articles and computer print outs, pictures-he wasn't ignoring Jenna's crime fighting career. He was actively following along with everyone else, maybe even taking some pride in some of her heroics. But-

"I can't condone this lifestyle, her choices. I know how your lot's stories tend to end. " His eyes are locked on a photo of Jenna with that unabashed, pixie grin on her face, her googles on top of her head and that little salute she sometimes gave before speeding off.

His throat is tight and he swallows against it, having already, verbally and non verbally, spilled more than he has to anyone, ever, on his emotional state. He didn't have much in the way of family. He'd joined the military as soon as he'd been able to, hadn't even graduated high school just so he could get the hell out of his home life, his 'family'. His wife and daughter-he wasn't an emotional man, he may not have always expressed it in the best of ways-but they were his world.

He couldn't protect Jenna from the shark infested waters she seemed dead set on wading in. He couldn't stop her directly, either. And he definitely couldn't sit on the side lines waving and smiling as she put her life in danger.

This was his baby. His baby.

 

[Obuzeti]

I know how your lot's stories tend to end.

Elias's vision goes white under an actinic, unearthly surge of rage that prickles his skin and numbs his head. He tries to smile through it. Has no idea what it looked like from outside, as he rolls his jaw and glances aside, eyes too wide and staring. Whatever issues he has with this man are insignificant compared to the stretch of his own self-control and he spends a moment patching that in utter silence.

It's not their fault. It's not their fault.

Ten years alone, his friends and family buried to save the fucking world, so people can look him in the eye and tell him they know how their - our - stories tended to end. Adamant wants to scream, and smothers it under the numbness of a decade and slides back to that easy smile. Victory was never so bitter.

But the easy smile isn't right either. Nothing is easy here. It's about struggle, and prices, and the goodness you will allow yourself to do, and reach for. Elias knows goodness by the sharpness of the edges you must grasp to have it. Compassion, and justice, and fairness do not exist in the vacuum. Make it yourself, or know it not.

The easy smile slips off. The core opens. Elias looks at this other man and feels nothing.

"No one can hide her now," he says, the words naked and terrible in their straightforwardness. "If I had known her before she took them on, I might have counseled her otherwise myself. This isn't an easy life - I know this. Choices have been made though. She has no secret identity, and she cannot protect you like she wishes. She defied Paul Marrane, and there is no thing on this Earth that matches his cruelty, though I grant him no other honors."

"She cannot retreat, not from the enemies she has made, and now she must move forward. Become stronger, smarter, quicker - gather allies - bring down those she opposes. Where she is heading - where I stand - the law means nothing. The law changes. The enforcers changes. The papers that define it change. Only strength remains and that is what has molded our world."

Rahab. The Atlantic Powers Act. Caliban.

What Elias says isn't comforting, but there is no lullaby to make these dreams go away. Better to know, he hears Marie's voice in his ears like a whisper, and he agrees. "I can't make her come home," the veteran hero says, "and I wouldn't make her stay. What I can do is make a stand. Declare a challenge, and draw their anger, their spite. Break the wave upon my back."

He rolls his shoulders in a shitty shrug. "If she is anything like Laura - the last woman to wear that uniform - she will try to do the same. I just don't want her to have to do that alone. Whatever choices she makes, she shouldn't be alone."

Elias doesn't know if what he's saying is the one that will help Jenna's argument, or whatever reason he was brought here - but he can feel this man's heart as clearly as his own, immersed by empathy, and all he can do is give the answers he now knows by heart. It's a bitter truth, but it's better to know.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

A slow, miserable nod as he absorbs everything said. It's not what he wants to hear, or at all what he wants-but it was the truth. He felt as if a noose had been drawn around his neck, that he was staring down eternity himself.

"So this is what it is." He said softly, almost to himself. Then, idly, almost in a daze; "Three months ago, she wasn't old enough to drink."

How had it come to all this? His world was upside down, but nevermind that-did Jenna understand these implications? She wasn't stupid, but he couldn't quite imagine her shouldering such things, possessing that sort of...strength? Fortitude? She...wasn't his little girl anymore. At the same time, she always would be.

And here he was not talking to her while she forged ahead into territory utterly foreign to either of them. Her world had turned upside down, too-and he was adding to what were already intense difficulties, sending her into the arms of strangers.

Maybe these were battles he could not fight for her, but that didn't mean he had to hinder them, either.

Halwell was right. She shouldn't be alone.

He rose to stand, closing the book and setting it aside. He can't bring himself to thank the other man-he's still not happy about her living with him. She might be a full grown woman making her own decisions, but she was a young woman. Much too young for the veteran hero in front of him.

He eyes him a moment, no longer quite so defeated looking. It was better to know. Regaining his strength, his balance, his composure. He was still her father. That hadn't changed.

"...I better get out there, Tala will have her digging up and rearranging half the garden otherwise...and Jenna'll do it, too." He wasn't a man of many words, but something had clearly been resolved within him with Elias' help.

"...Tala will probably want to do dinner, if you're hungry." He imagined he might be-Jenna was an awful cook. He offered a firm handshake and then moved back into the dining kitchen area and out the back door.

It was as he said-Tala might not have moved onto to the ground plants yet, but she and Jenna were rearranging and mixing up the potted ones, some sort of color scheme or arrangement that was shifting and reshifting around in the older woman's head. It came to a stand still as the screen door closed behind him, the man saying nothing.

He didn't have to-he was beset with hugs on either side. The Paige family-mended.

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias simply nods and shakes Ronnie's hand, his words exhausted for the moment. What happens next between the Paiges isn't his business, though he can see the group embrace through the kitchen window. Their family is healing. Elias stands and walks a couple steps into the dining room area, where he can't see them directly. Better not to interrupt, make them feel hurried. Healing isn't something to skimp on, or disregard.

The dining room's overhead light is off. The dim, orange light through the kitchen window illuminates that half of the room, but the table lays swathed in shade, surrounded by pictures of the family. Happy, smiling people. There is a home, here. A family has grown together like a grove of trees, wrapped about each other's lives.

Elias stands in the shadow, and looks at the pictures, and feels nothing.

He looks at his communicator.

He presses the code without really thinking about it.

In Samson, in an underground base lit with the backglow of digital monitors, another communicator begins to ring.

When she picks up, Elias sits and listens to her breathing for a moment. Then says, still absent, "Jenna's family has consented. She will be joining us, I imagine."

He doesn't know what else to say. There isn't anything else to say.

He doesn't hang up.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

"Seemed loyal to you. I'm sure that's ironclad now." Marie's response is just as flat, unsurprised. Speedsters, as ever, were useful. She was also a very present symbol of the new guard, something independent from the Tower despite their attempt to commandeer her image. It'd make a good front, that meld of old and new. And with Adamant at the forefront they'd pave a better way.

Adamant...well, Elias said nothing else. She expected more...noise? Something to be irritated by? A mention of the mangy cat he'd left upstairs for inexplicable reasons? Marie pauses in her task, a glance to the communication system she's wired into the console. The light was still on.

She watched the light a beat longer despite the fact no new information could possibly be derived from it, frowning. "...good work." She ventures slowly, eyes narrowing a fraction as long dormant (and hardly functional in the first place) gears struggle to turn through the rust, her lips pursing as she casts around for something else to say.

The light remained steady. "...looking out for the kid, I mean." It's a poor attempt of a probe, but it was something. She had always found interrogations a hell of a lot easier than talking, dammit.

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias breathes. It's easier now. He doesn't know why.

Probably four, five seconds elapse. He just breathes. He should probably explain why. He should probably explain something.

Elias hits the replay function of his communicator, navigates it to the auto-stored last five minutes, and plays back the conversation he'd had with Ronnie Page. He's still trying to explain what, precisely, in that argument has him so empty, nullified of his own humanity. The replay is as much for himself as Marie.

It's the last bit where it strikes him, finally.

She shouldn't be alone.

Elias inhales. Once; twice. His breath steadies. He blinks rapidly. His back straightens.

"I'm sorry you were alone, Marie," he says. "Never again. No matter what happens."

No more. Never again. Not any of them. This is the line.

Elias's grief and rage intermix in him, bitter and bracing, and make his voice hoarse as he understands what wrong has been done to him and those he loves.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

She has no idea why he was playing the conversation either. Something was wrong, something was off-so she listens, even though it's difficult to listen, even if it makes her half want to strangle the owner of the original voice. His daughter wasn't dead. She wasn't entirely doomed-what point was there to any of this? Elias had already obtained the results he had wanted. She didn't need a play by play.

But he was playing for a reason, so she tries to glean what she can, approving when Elias laid out the cold hard truth. It didn't matter what he wanted or what he thought he could pressure his daughter into doing-all that he had feared had come to pass. It was too late for fairy tales, now.

She's quiet when it ends, his heroic stance again almost nostalgic to her. Of course he was invested. Of course he was.

And then he hits her broadside with a focus on her instead of the kid.

His apology both makes her angry and jabs her through the hole in her chest, the place her heart should be-slices through the ugly she carries inside. She's no charity case. It didn't matter-what mattered was the war, what mattered was the way they'd all turned and disappeared, let the scum keep their footholds, gain more traction, power, stability. The bitterness and betrayal was on her tongue, stuck like tar to that gaping hole tried to reject that goodness, that shining example from touching her. She needs the anger to distract her from the tragedy that had claimed so many and put her in this chair-that led the world of heroes to a whimpering ruin.

But...she didn't entirely feel that bitterness towards Elias anymore, knowing what she did now. The acidic response and rejection dies on her lips, in her throat. He'd been dead. That he was here at all...that he still bothered at all, despite powers at work he didn't seem to understand, despite all he had lost...he had come back.

She had always banked on him coming back. She had not at all considered he had very nearly been lost in the first place.

Like Sam.

Her grip tightens on the wheel well, loosens, tightens-holds tight. The ravaged remaining muscles of her legs tense, the dull ache becoming a searing agony, a harsh reminder of failure.

Her gaze drifts to the camera views of her cesspit. So very many failures.

The crippled vigilante shook her head slowly, tried to refocus. She can't do this. She can't. The war matters. All she was, all she had to do was fill this purpose, single minded and with precision. It was all she deserved-it was more than she deserved. He was awake, he was here, he'd fight the forces that had strengthened in his absence, in the wake of so many deaths and retirings, disappearances and impotent would be 'heroes'.

But didn't Elias deserve more than to 'serve a purpose'? Hadn't he suffered enough?

"And I left because I could lose no more."

She feels so tired, again.

"You were nearly beyond any of us." She reminds, the words are without ire, without a growl-just there. No...she's not angry with Elias. She was glad he was here at all, that he still existed at all. And he had come back. He came back.

"...we're building momentum." She hears herself say, idly coming back to herself, the brief flare of...whatever that had been pushed aside for what she can stand to focus on, what mattered. There's no Marie here to leave alone-there is only Protagonist, the wraith behind so very many computer screens, lost in data and tracking all that the scum would hide from the world. If it made him feel better to think otherwise, let him-so long as the work was being done, so long as the stand was being taken.

The grit and the steel returned to her voice, the gruff, near growl. "There'll be no stopping us." The years of wait, of distophy were over. The scum had grown fat and complacent, but their feast was over. And they wouldn't let the girl die, either.

"Mission in two days. Be ready."