Logs:Ghosts of New York

Ghosts of New York
Dramatis Personae DJ, Steve
In Absentia	2021-12-01 "The more things change."
Location
(Steve --> DJ): Dear DJ, (Steve --> DJ): Dear Mr. Allr (Steve --> DJ): Esteemed Comrade (Steve --> DJ): Hey there. How are you doing? I'm sorry it took me so long (Steve --> DJ): Dear DJ, I hope you are doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances. I'm sorry it took me so long to get in touch with you again. I haven't really known what to do with the Avengers or, for that matter, myself, much less how to talk to you, but that's no excuse. I am still not quite sure about any of the above, but two of those should ideally involve your input, if you are still willing to give it. I would like to talk to you, maybe treat you to lunch for your trouble. My schedule is fairly open this week, so just let me know when and where would be convenient for you, if you are amenable. Sincerely, Steve (Steve --> DJ): P.S. I realize this probably should have been an email, but I don't know your address. Apologies for the "wall of text". There's no reply to Steve's texts. At least, not on his phone. About fifteen minutes later, though, there's a faint flutter, a blurring in the air beside him, and suddenly there is a DJ -- just a bit disheveled, though he's smoothing out his hair, straightening the front of his grey tee and green-blue-black checked flannel. Glancing first around them and then, a little relieved, to Steve. His arms (there are two today, a new yet already somewhat dinged up plastic one at his left side) start to cross over his chest but then fall to his side. "I'm free now." In front of an easel in one of the studios, Steve is in his painting clothes -- a tight black t-shirt and well-worn jeans, both liberally splattered with paint, his own flannel (red and black) shed and draped over the stool he's not sitting on. At the first flutter of motion he's already turning, knocking over the shield that had been leaning against a leg of the easel and stepping sharply on its concave edge to flip it up to -- -- yoink. Somewhere mid-flip the shield finds itself in DJ's hands; the other man barely seems to have moved, but he's definitely holding the shield, leaning back casually against the wall by the entryway where he's just arrived. "Sorry," comes out mild and without a lot of apology in it, "-- I got your text, is all." He's looking down at the surface of the shield with a slightly distant expression for only a second before he offers it back. "You hungry?" Presumably Steve had recognized the source of the yoinking by the time it occurred, because he's relaxing from the combat stance he'd only just started to assume, raising both hands -- the left one still holding a paintbrush -- and blushing faintly. His work in progress is a wooded landscape bright with autumn foliage above what will probably eventually be a winding brook. Flat-footed as he was, he seems to have recovered by the time DJ speaks, accepting the shield back and turning half away to clean off his brush. "Sorry for the ah..." Perhaps the trailing off indicates some realization it was was a ludicrous apology, or perhaps he just did not know where the apology was going. "Just didn't expecting you so soon, but this can wait." He tips his head at the canvas as he dries his hands off with a rag, though only some of the paint comes off. "I sure am. And if I weren't, I probably would be by the time we got to food. What're you feeling like?" "I didn't mean to interrupt, I just --" Maybe Steve's blush is contagious; DJ's cheeks are pinkening, too. He's blipped away from the entryway, closer to the canvas to inspect it curiously. Then back to where he was before. The question makes him hesitate, chewing uncertainly on the inside of his cheek. "I know it's totally the wrong hour but I still haven't had breakfast if you know any good diners around here." His arm starts to cross across his chest again. Drops, again. "Wasn't -- really even expecting to hear from you." "No -- it's fine." Steve inspects his brush and meticulously blots the water out of it before submerging it and the other semi-cleaned brushes in a large glass jar helpfully labeled "BRUSH CLEANER DO NOT DRINK" in duct tape and black marker. "This project is sort of an experiment. I'm not on a timeline. Which is why I keep taking breaks to help set up classrooms or get into fights on Twitter or write excessively long text messages." His smile is faint and just a touch sheepish. "For a while, I didn't expect you'd want to hear from me. For another while I was not..." His head gives a quick shake as he deposits the brush-filled jar to a shelf. "Eventually came around to wanting to talk to you and not knowing what I should say. Then finally figured out I can't actually have that conversation with myself." A (large) squirt of hand sanitizer takes the worst of the paint from his hands, and he turns back to DJ. "A wise man taught me breakfast can happen any time. The Paper Cafe's almost directly under the bridge at the waterfront. They've got good views and even better food, if you can put up with the painfully hip bohemian -- vibe." "Who are you fighting on Twitter?" DJ's brows furrow at this; the frown only deepens with the next question: "Why wouldn't I want to hear from you? I just thought that --" He's gone a little bit more tense, and his head shakes hard and quick. His eyes have skated back to the painting, fixing on the bright autumn leaves there. "Did you? Figure out what you should say?" "I hate to sound like a one-note song, but -- Nazis." Steve retrieves his flannel and picks his shield up like a reasonable person this time. He coasts to a stop beside DJ. "That idea had nothing to do with what you actually wanted and a lot to do with my sense of guilt. I know now I had it wrong but at the time? I was a mess." He slings the shield over one shoulder. "Partly. Figured I should start with an apology, and I never feel quite like that counts if I do it in text. I'm sorry that I almost got you killed, and I don't mean the tactical miscalculation which...admittedly was not great." He runs a hand through his hair. "But I mean in rushing you -- heck, both of us -- into a project that I absolutely did not know how to manage, then letting Nick Fury rush us into a mission we were absolutely not ready to tackle. And..." He drops his gaze, though his posture remains straight. "...I'm sorry for vanishing after." DJ's cheeks darken again when Steve stops beside him. His eyes drop to his boots, and the next shake of his head is slower. "If I hadn't gotten myself caught --" His lips compress, and his gaze ticks up in swift surprise at the end of Steve's list. One arm curls around himself, fingers pressing hard against his side, the tense posture at odds with his cavalier tone when he replies, "Oh, I've survived much worse imprisonments, trust me. And definitely been demonized worse in the press. Besides, you had your own stuff to deal with. Probably actual friends you needed to sort things out with. I wasn't really expecting to be high on your -- priority list." His brows scrunch once more. "Are you still doing it? The whole -- Avengers project?" Steve's eyebrows lift just a fraction. "Think we could probably go back and forth about which one of us blundered harder." His lips press into a thin, unhappy line. "After we got back, though, I wasn't seeing to any of my friends, or myself. Couldn't tell you what was on my priority list, or for sure why Latveria wrecked me so badly, only that I'm playing catch-up now, best I can." His ice blue eyes track the change in DJ's posture. "That applies to the Avengers, too, and I do plan to go ahead with that, God help me. I want to know whether you'll go with me, and if so how we could go about it without making you the team's whipping boy." He searches DJ's face, his own expression largely neutral save for a small furrow between his brows. "But you should have been a priority for me, Avengers or no. You are my teammate, and that would have been reason enough even if we hadn't been through an interdimensional crisis together, even if I weren't one of a very few people in this world with even the faintest notion what you sacrificed for us all." He turns his left hand palm-up. "I'm well aware buying you breakfast is no compensation for neglecting you, but I have to start somewhere and we both have absurd metabolisms." DJ looks up at Steve, a little bemused at the mention of teams whipping boy until a short-sharp laugh slips out of him. "Oh, you're serious! Uh -- maybe you should talk to Luci about that instead, I don't -- think I have that kind of. Magic." He's still curled tight into himself but uncurls all at once when Steve mentions food again, reaching to take the other man's upturned hand. "Sorry, I totally forgot --" All at once the world is twisting and blurring around them in a nauseating-dizzy lurch. Only for a second -- when it settles they're on another warehouse rooftop some blocks away along the waterfront, DJ's cheeks redder and his head bowing. "-- crud, I forgot which way you said." Steve had only just opened his mouth to reply when DJ whisks them both away. When they are stationary he lets go of DJ's hand only to immediately grasp it again for balance. Then let go again, blushing. "Give a fella --" The slip of his native accent is dramatic, but he doesn't seem much embarrassed by it even as he resumes his learned, ostensibly neutral one. "No problem. I just need a moment." He orients himself toward the bridges automatically. "Leaving PR to S.H.I.E.L.D. clearly will not do," he admits. "God knows Luci's got enough on his plate, but this will affect him -- as my publicist and my friend -- whether I consult him or not. Already has." He glances back at DJ, then points toward the graceful monumental span of the Brooklyn Bridge. "Down by the water, just about under the bridge, next to the old --" His gaze goes a little distant, the rest of that sentence escaping in a quiet breath before he tries again with, "Next to the ferry terminal." There's no warning. The directions are barely past Steve's lips when the world is all a blur again. They're on the roof of the cafe itself when it solidifies in the next instant. "What used to be there?" DJ is looking in the direction of the ferry, his hand still tight around Steve's. Perhaps anticipating the lack of warning, Steve handles the second trip better. His balance is still off when they arrive, but he's steadier when he lets go this time. The roof of the Paper Moon is as colorful as the rest of it, loud enough to look cheerful even in the shadow of the mighty bridge. Steve isn't looking at the brightly painted restaurant or the Quirky Art -- a rainbow of scrap metal sculptures, disassembled mannekins, a wheelbarrow full of kewpie dolls -- spilling out onto its grounds. He isn't looking at the ferry either, or even the picturesque park beyond it. Not quite. "The New York Dock Company head office. They owned the waterfront -- docks, warehouses, railyards, housing -- all the way down to Red Hook." He points along the shoreline, not quite bustling at this hour, but certainly lively. "We came up here to ah, give the Company feedback, from time to time." He quirks a sardonic smile at DJ. "This is a huge improvement, but the bar was pretty low." A very brief hesitation. "You still see a different New York, when you look at this one?" DJ whistles, low, his eyes skimming out along the shore in the direction Steve points. "The more things change, huh? Half these buildings got the same development company branded on 'em." His fingers trace against the brightly painted safety rail on the roof, and his cheeks flush darker at Steve's question. He reaches out -- -- and the world warps away from them again, twisting and churning and settling down into a platform of scaffolding, on the side of half-of-a-building rising up over the High Line and looking out toward the railyards. "This place and half the neighborhood got destroyed the first time New York was invaded," DJ's going to lean up against the scaffolding, his arm sweeping out toward the park below. "What Tony helped build back was like a piece of paradise. Was really looking forward to taking my girls to that playground some day, if we ever --" His fingers wrap around the bar, his weight leaning precariously over the edge of the rail. "Do you ever stop seeing it?" Steve nods slow and solemn, but if he had a reply it is swallowed up in the disorienting whirl of DJ's teleportation. He blinks, re-orienting himself as he finally shrugs into the shield harness properly in what might be an acknowledgement that more rapid transit might occur at any moment. "Invasion," he echoes. "Was it -- space aliens?" He joins DJ at the rail. Does not lean out over it. "The High Line Park is all about taking a piece of the past that doesn't fit in the present and doing something amazing with it for the future." He swallows hard, lifting his gaze from the long slender greenspace below to the Hudson River Park in the offing. "Not sure why I'm surprised he'd understand that." His pale blue eyes flick back to DJ. "I'm sorry you didn't get to do that. Some of your experiences feel familiar to me, but that -- I doubt if I can even imagine." He looks back out over the city. "I haven't, yet. Doesn't mean you won't. Doesn't mean I won't, someday. In some twisted subconscious way I thought that not mourning the world I lost would mean it wasn't gone, not really." He grips the railing hard. "But all it did was blind me to the world I'm actually living in. I'm not," he adds, conciliatory, "saying that's happened to you, or will. Suspect it's harder for you, either way." He claps his left hand to the other man's shoulder, gently. "But I'm glad to listen if you want to talk about -- the world you lost. I only ever saw Staten Island, which is probably not fair to the rest of it." "Oh -- not that time," DJ says with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Just some robot Nazis." He looks down to Steve's hand on the railing -- then back up sharply with the hand that claps to his shoulder, his breath catching momentarily. He doesn't-quite manage to cover the hitch with a small laugh, a shake of his head. "-- really should have waited a few more days, let the rift take the darn place. No big loss." His eyes turn back outward, weight shifting down against his arm and his shoulder tense beneath Steve's hand. "How do you mourn a world practically nobody else remembers? Half the time I feel like I'm losing my mind. Like I just dreamed it and I should wake up properly and move on." Steve only raises his eyebrows at this. "Robot Nazis." Not so much incredulous so much as curious. "The more things change." His head dips slightly, his chuckle dry and almost but not quite humorless. "There were suggestions we 'accidentally' let the rift eat this Staten Island, too. Not sure they were all joking." He's quiet a moment, a subtle tension rising and quickly easing from his powerful frame. "I don't know. So much of grief is communal, and facing it on your own sounds hard, and lonely, and terrifying." He hand squeezes down on DJ's shoulder, so very carefully. "But I think people often believe things and relate to them in meaningful ways without experiencing them directly. Almost all we know about the world -- about any world -- comes from other people. Maybe in some ways, reality is communal." His voice is quiet and steady, here. "I don't know that it's worth a whole heck of a lot, considering, but I believe you. Other folks can, too." "It's hard, and terrifying," DJ agrees simply enough, "and --" he breaks off, here, wavering slightly beneath Steve's touch. His hand lifts, fingertips touching lightly to the back of Steve's, and there's something noticeably more unfocused in his gaze. His mechanical fingers don't really have any grip on the bar he's been braced against, leaving his posture looking more precarious still with only one plastic palm pressed to the crossbar. "Hey." Steve's brows furrow deeply. "Are you alright?" He might have intended to wait for a reply, but then his eyes take in the other man's bleary eyes, unsteady posture, prosthetic hand not-actually-gripping the rail. His next breath comes abrupt and sharp and ragged as he curls his other arm around DJ and pulls him -- not quite so gently as before, though not roughly enough to hurt -- away from the edge of the scaffolding. He slips his left hand, slow and careful again, from DJ's shoulder, but seems reluctant to let go of him altogether. "DJ?" DJ doesn't answer. It takes a long time -- by his standards -- for his eyes to track down to Steve's hand, very delayed in following this motion. His hand drops sharply, his breath hitching in suddenly like he's only just remembered he needs to be drawing it. The step back he takes is unsteady, the shake of his head quick -- and then he's gone, leaving Steve high up above the city alone.