Logs:Human-Shaped

Human-Shaped
Dramatis Personae Sam, Steve
In Absentia Unidentified Hostile Hulk	2024-12-12 "I doubt our new nemesis can fly."
Location <PRV> Sam and Steve's Apartment - Harlem
This is a third-story walkup in an aging historic building which, while not entirely crumbling, has a certain worn and shabby look, its plumbing and fixtures often in need of repair. The apartment has two small bedrooms, but makes up for it with capacious common areas. A single long space serves as living room and dining room combined, is semi-open to the kitchen, and has a surprisingly large bathroom with an antique claw-footed tub. Tall, drafty windows let out onto the fire escape from the living room and both bedrooms, and let in excellent light from the southern exposure. The sleek art deco motif that runs through the living room furniture, while not strictly matching, has clearly been worked to coordinate. The dining set, coffee and end tables have been crafted with complementary geometric patterning, ebony accents providing a dark contrast to the warmer swirls of maple burl that feature most prominently. The sofa, love seat, and chair fill out the rest of the living room, a matching set upholstered in plush burgundy. The numerous lamps do not all match, but are all beautiful -- some of them more artistic than functional, but between them all the space is very well lit. Zenobia got her morning run earlier than usual today, and is now sprawled across the dining room floor watching Steve cook. He's in a plain black t-shirt and comfortable worn-down jeans, wearing an apron in styled in bright red, white, and blue after his original shield from the Captain America USO show -- heater-shaped, like an archetypical knight's shield -- his hair still drying from the shower. The apartment smells delicious. "Flashpots are shootin' bright as the sun, I'm one highfalutin' son of a gun," he's singing brightly. His range as a cook is somewhat more limited than his singing, but most of that range is, in fact, breakfast. There are cheddar grits on the back burner, garlic rosemary potatoes roasting in the oven, strips of bacon fried and set aside so he can fry eggs in their grease. The coffee machine is adding the aroma of the fresh-ground beans to the mix. "Don't ask me how fortune found me, Fate just crowned me, now I'm king of New York!" Sam is slower to get up this morning than his usual routine -- it's still early enough by non-military-bro standards but by his, positively sluggish. He's dragging himself blearily out of his room and to the bathroom, and by the time he is done in there he's at least looking more alive. Fresher faced, actually awake. He's still moving noticeably stiff and slow as he sinks down onto a stool opposite the kitchen counter. "Got me dreaming of tasty breakfast and then bam." "Good morning!" Steve's eyes tick over Sam, a quick appraisal that doesn't seem to dim his energy, though he does immediately turn away to fix the coffee. By the time he pivots back to set Sam's mug in front of him, he has a slight smile firmly in place. "Just so happens, 'bam' is one of my specialties." He takes the potatoes out of the oven and starts assembling a plate. "Glad to make a dream come true while I'm at it. How'd you sleep, aside from the prophetic dream?" Sam shakes his head slow. He pulls the coffee towards himself, inhaling deep, and he does not dredge up an answer until after he's taken a deep first swallow. "Like I got run over by a damn Mack truck yesterday. Went a couple rounds with Hulk. Must have been some mutant we ran into down there because damn, the wallop on that guy --" He's still shaking his head as he takes another sip. Steve's lips compress and his brows start to pinch, but then he takes a breath and relaxes both as he completes his plating with two eggs right out of the pan. "Got briefed yesterday while you were still at medical. Sounded pretty intense, but a briefing is --" He shrugs, sliding the plate and silverware over to Sam. "Brief. Figure it was a sight more intense than it sounded." He stops in the middle of throwing another plate together and looks inordinately proud of himself for remembering to get the hot sauce from the cupboard. "And more impressive you walked away, too. How you holding up?" "Had worse. Sure I will again some day." Sam starts to rub at his side but catches himself with a wince. "Man just walked up and did that E.T. right in front of me. Don't think they meant any harm and still he--" He exhales hard, and pulls his plate in close. He splats a heft dose of hot sauce onto his eggs, but then doesn't touch them. "It was cold, man." Steve's lips press thin again, and he does not smooth the expression away this time. He pulls out the liter bottle of Jameson and spikes his coffee, then offers it with uplifted brows a slight tip in the direction of Sam's mug. "Your report said the E.T. calmed down when they heard a language they recognized. But even if they hadn't..." He studies Sam's face and leave the rest unsaid. "Did you get any sense at all whether the -- unidentified hostile understood you?" "Yeah, whatever it was they were doing I don't think it was out of no malice. Maybe just hungry, maybe hurt, maybe some weird-ass alien shit they didn't even know was damaging everything around. Won't know, now. Let the poor guy down." Sam waves away the offer of booze and takes another swallow of his unspiked coffee. "I didn't get much sense of anything. Seemed human -- shaped, but shit if I even know how much that means, these days." Steve nods, putting the whiskey away and tidying up after himself a bit. "You did your best by them." He braces his hands on the edge of the counter, frowning at his plate, piled high with food. Then applies a light drizzle of hot sauce to it. "Couldn't have foreseen an absurdly strong assassin intervening. You said he took something out of the fella after he killed him. Maybe he's like those Myrmidon mercs who thought they were going to come out on top of the Brood invasion." He sets his plate and mug on the counter next to Sam before coming around the counter to perch himself on a stool. "We should go in pairs for these missions from now on. At least." "Dunno what it was. SciTech guys don't have much on that species yet. Guessing your right and some merc's sitting on a bounty of blood money now, though." Slowly, Sam starts to slice into his eggs, swirling some through his grits before he eats the mouthful. "Not like I was out there alone, dude picked off me and a couple field agents like he was swatting a fly. Hate to say it but I think if you been there all it mighta meant is we'd be getting takeout for breakfast today." Steve bows his head, or maybe it's a single reluctant nod. "You're probably right." Takes a gulp of his liberally spiked coffee. "I'm not so arrogant that I think I coulda bested him. It's probably arrogant enough to think I mighta occupied him long enough for you to get that poor fella out of there. Figured, I can take an awful lot of punishment, and I doubt our new nemesis can fly." He turns his empty hand palm-up, a mild suggestion of a shrug. "Then again, most human-shaped folks can't off-handedly uproot an entire tree, either." Sam chews over his next bite of food very slowly. "Well. Maybe next time, you can --" He cuts himself off with a small grimace. "Y'know what, actually --" He's rapping his knuckles against the sturdy wooden stool beside him, "let's hope there ain't no next time."