(OPEN LOG) you may one day be queen

[centurybaby]

WHO: jennifer quantum & YOU.
WHERE: nooks and crannies of the city.
WHEN: your choice of early evening or late night.
WARNINGS: jenny's vocabulary, etc.
SUMMARY: the depowered teenage terrorist is laying low. sort of.
FORMAT: quick to start, but i'll match you!


( early evening )

[ she isn't sure if it's the fact that she's basically human now or the state of the world or something else entirely-- maybe it's the restlessness, that's been bad-- but she's been smoking herself aggressively back into the grave with a cigarette at her mouth every hour she isn't sleeping. it's always been a bad habit, but it's an annoying one now. you never realize how often you use the spark of your quantum powers to light your smokes until you can't do it anymore.

that's how you end up outside a shabby, hole-in-the-wall convenience store when you should be hiding from the authorities. it's an excuse to see how the city's doing anyway, and her cigarettes won't light themselves. though it's starting to seem unlikely that her new cheap plastic lighter will either. she sits down on the curb with a fresh cigarette hanging from her mouth, clicking that lighter over and over without producing more than a teasing spark. ]

Fuck.

--

( late night )

[ she sticks around a little longer than she should. but things seem quieter now, like maybe the events in a small country across the ocean is starting to fade from people's minds. it's worth the risk, maybe, to walk around the city a little and ease back the building agitation she's harbored after weeks of laying low, powerless and fucking bored. the bustling crowds that flood the sidewalks during the day are more or less thinned to a few stragglers by now anyway.

she's got a half-smoked cigarette hanging from her fingers as she pauses to watch a random couple argue across the street. her cigarette dwindles without her really paying attention to it. she's not even sure what it is exactly about those strangers that catches her attention so much (except maybe in a weird way, it makes her think of her parents), but it's too late by the time she notices someone looming over her and something sharp pressed up against her back through her jacket.

she thinks he says, in a rushed voice, something cliche like: hand over your money. now.

she thinks about his atoms. about their little tiny bonds breaking apart. she thinks about the molecules that make him up just disappearing, defying the laws of physics. but nothing happens. because jenny quantum is a lesser being right now, so instead of handing anything over, she just huffs out a amused breath at the irony. all she can think of as the mugger makes his demand louder is that her dad would have ripped his throat out by now. ]

Comments

[hellionated]

Wow, since when do Terry and Quire equal the entire Network? Let's be real, they don't have that many friends.

[ Thoughtfully. ] I guess I could tell Jess. She'd probably be impressed.

[ He means absolutely none of this, but he shoots a smile in Jenny's direction.

Yeah, shut up. He missed her. Let's not make a big deal out of this. ]

[centurybaby]

Yeah, sure. What the hell. Enjoy it while you fucking can, J.

[ she quirks a wry smile back, absently flicking away what tiny bit of her cigarette is left. she reaches into her back pocket for another one, tapping it out and pressing it to her mouth, digging around for her lighter.

absently: ]

Where the fuck is that thing?

[hellionated]

You'll probably be really fucking annoying, and get me back for it some day.

Hey, maybe your lighter's trying to tell you it's time to stop smoking, Quantum. Ever think of that?

[centurybaby]

[ she gives him a look. ]

What the fuck for? I've already died twice here, and neither time was 'cause I had a few fucking smokes, alright.

[ she talks about it lightly, like it doesn't matter. but she'd been dwelling on it a lot. not just about bradbury and her complicated feelings on that, but how both times she had either terry or julian there-- or both-- and how her friendship's been hard on the both of them. it's not something she'll say out loud, but she thinks about it.

her unlit cigarette bobs at her mouth when she goes on: ]

Hey. How the fuck are you, anyway?

[hellionated]

[ Twice is too many times. Hell, once is too many times as far as Julian’s concerned. His feelings about it are less complicated than hers. Bradbury is on his shit list pretty much permanently. And he hasn’t seen sight of the Sentry since that time he went insane, but he’d view him in much the same way. Seeing things in black and white terms had gotten Julian into trouble more than once. But it keeps things neater, when it comes to deciding who his friends are. ]

That shit’s gonna ruin your lungs. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. When you’re forty and can’t breathe worth a damn, you’ll know what to blame.

[ He takes a turning, aiming for the taco place. ]

I’m good. I’ve got some shit going on. Work is busy. [ He’s investigating Vulcanus. He’s working with Jack and Callie. He wants to tell her about all of that, but how can he? Jenny’s in hiding, even though no one who’d seen her tonight would be able to tell that. ] You missed that whole thing where we got ported to another dimension last month. There were Skrulls, it was shit.

You know. The usual.

[centurybaby]

It's so fucking cute that you give a shit, Keller. BFFs forever, right?

[ it comes out mocking, but she sort of means it, that sentiment. he really is one of the best-- and only-- friends she's ever had. ]

Shapeshifting aliens. Alternate dimensions. Same shit, different day, huh? [ she's a little amused, maybe. as they walk, she takes her unlit cigarette and puts it behind one ear. it's hard to tell if that's because she gave up on finding her lighter or if she's listening to him, this once. ] Almost makes you miss partying and waking up in someone else's underwear.

[hellionated]

[ He lightly punches her shoulder. He does note that she's not lighting the death stick though, so maybe she's paying more attention than she's pretending. ]

Fuck, those were the days. 'Course if you miss it, you can always look up the old videos. It's not like anyone can get rid of them now Striker's gone.

[centurybaby]

[ she makes another vaguely amused noise, letting him play-punch her without retaliation. ]

Good, 'cause like hell I'm ever gonna let you guys live that shit down.

[ a little pause ]

Do you wish it was still like that?

[hellionated]

[ Julian makes a sound that’s as close to laughter as he can make out. That’s a harder question to answer than he wants her to believe. Back when all that was going on, his life had been sucking in a lot of ways. Sofia had been gone, the Imbargo Act had just been passed, and they were about to get their asses kicked in Venezuela. Things had taken a more defined turn for him since then. Sofia had come back, and what had happened in Venezuela had given him a direction he hadn’t felt before. It had made him want to act, to make a difference again. There was a large part of him that thinks that’s an improvement.

But it had been Jenny who’d set him on that track in the first place. She’d made him part of a team again. Would he be so ready to act now, if she hadn’t kicked his ass out of the funk it had been in after he lost his hands?

He doesn’t think so. At length: ]

I wish it had never stopped being like that. I can’t say I’m gonna get all nostalgic about that one time I got so drunk that I woke up in Terry’s tighty whiteys, that’s the kind of shit people get therapy for. But we were good. I’m glad you made me join your stupid team, Jenny. Of fucking course I miss it. Don’t you?

[centurybaby]

[ and she's proud of them, her little band of misfits. despite everything, despite her violence and her shitty attitude and how rough she is around the edges, she's still a chaotic force for good. she's still a protector, a defender, and she believes in that. she believes in them, in terry and in julian.

she just doesn't always see the three of them on the same paths. maybe, in some ways, she wants them to walk a higher path than her, to keep their hands cleaner, to do the heroic things that she can't.

at length: ]

Sure. I fucking miss it all the time. Gotta grow up some time though, right?

[hellionated]

[ If he knew that, Julian would think it was dumb. There's part of him that thinks Jenny sits higher than both of them, by virtue of who she is. And by virtue of what she is.

If the spirit of the century thinks she has to get her hands dirty and impose her will on people to make them fall in line, that says bad things about what the century has in store. ]

Is that what you're doing? Cause I wasn't under the impression any one of us was still a kid, Jenny.

Not even you. And you're like, eight years old or something.

[centurybaby]

Nine, going on seventeen, thank you very fucking much.

[ the correction doesn't have much bite though. she hasn't felt eight years old for a really long time. after midnighter got sent home, there wasn't much of anyone to remind her or treat her like she was. it's hard to say if that was a good thing or a bad thing. ]

Point is, you assholes can't just hang out with me forever. I've got shit to do, and you guys have friends who aren't apparently terrorists. A little fucking distance while I'm still any good for you isn't gonna hurt.

[hellionated]

[ Julian thinks about this for a moment. Jenny’s probably trying to be really mature here. Hell, she’s probably trying to do the right thing, which is admirable. Really. ]

Jenny.

If you think what you’ve done makes any single damned bit of difference to me, then you don’t know me very well. I don’t walk away from my friends. If they walk away from me, that’s their call.

I don’t care what shit you have to do. This doesn’t change anything between you and me.

[centurybaby]

[ she eyes him for a while before answering. it isn't that she's really a good person or that her morals are on straight-- but she has more sentimental feelings than she ever cares to admit, and most of the time, she's pretty good at ignoring them. it's harder right now though. she's never had real friends of her own before-- not like this.

it means something.

finally: ]

So, what, you don't think I'm totally fucking crazy?

[hellionated]

[ That question provokes a smirk. ]

Oh, no. You're completely fucking crazy, I'll tell you that any day of the week.

I wouldn't like you if you weren't.

[centurybaby]

[ she eyes him a long second, face unreadable-- then finally, makes a scoffing noise, the corner of her mouth quirking up, like that answer actually pleases her.

dryly: ]

Does this mean if I get fucking crazier, we'll be better friends?

[hellionated]

Maybe. That depends on whether getting crazier means conquering anywhere else.

[ A pause. ] Which it better not, since if you do anything else that might end with you dead, I’ll kill you. Got that part, Quantum?

[centurybaby]

Like you could, asshole. Keep talking like that, and you'll end up being my fucking arch nemesis.

[ she doesn't promise though, even though she's joking about it now. that's a promise she just can't make. ]

[hellionated]

I thought you already had, like, three of those. You should probably stop collecting them.

[centurybaby]

What, I can't help being so fucking popular.

[hellionated]

[ A slight smile. ] You could try.

[centurybaby]

[ a bit wryly, but not insincerely: ]

Hey, if I didn't have humanity to save? For you, I would.

[hellionated]

[ A pause.

He's kind of surprised she said that. ]

Are you even sure humanity deserves it? Seriously.

[centurybaby]

It's not my fucking job to decide if humanity deserves saving or not. It's fucking job to just do it.

[ she shrugs, like it isn't a big deal. ]

Besides, sometimes you save people even when they don't deserve it.

[hellionated]

Now you sound like a hero.