Logs:Breathing Room

Breathing Room
Dramatis Personae Hive, Steve
In Absentia	2019-03-25 "Shield or no shield -- I've always been the fighting kind."
Location Montagues - SoHo
Montagues harkens back to the day when SoHo was filled to the brim with artists, with its mismatched furniture, all plush and decorated heavily with carved wood, but remains trendy enough to keep its newer patrons by making sure that furniture is clean, in good repair and inviting. The antique tables all have been reinforced to seem less creaky. The real draw of the cafe is the smell: fresh roasted coffee mingles with perfectly steeped teas. Spices from crisp pastries mingle with the tang of clotted cream but don't overwhelm too much the scent of chalk on the menu boards. It's an extremely crowded lunchtime at Montagues -- always a busy hour but not generally packed so far past capacity, a line stretching out past the door. The crowd isn't generally quite so /gawky/, either, an unusual number of cameras out and customers loitering after they've snagged their to-go drinks. At his customary corner window table, Hive sits slouched low in his chair, scowling at his laptop. His teeth are clenched, his finger tapping restlessly against one button of his mouse without actually clicking it. Intermittently, he rubs at his temple. The newly re-minted celebrity partly responsible for Montagues' abrupt surge in popularity has not shown his face out front all morning. Steve has, in fact, eschewed his break in favor of leaving a little earlier, not even touching his sandwich despite his gnawing hunger. He's slipped out by the back exit, wearing a black button-up shirt and black trousers, inexpertly disguised in a black ballcap with a red Rebel Alliance emblem embroidered on the front. He is anxious and fidgety as he makes his way up the alley, shoulders hunched in to minimize his build. Before he comes into view of the news crews and onlookers outside, he shoves his hands deep into his pockets to hide their restless motion and braces himself inwardly. It doesn't fool anyone. Or, at least, it doesn't fool /everyone/, and that single recognition gives him entirely away like the snowflake that starts the avalanche. A wave of reporters block off the mouth of the alley, microphones and cameras craning towards their target, a forest of smartphones held up high sprout up behind them. The babble of questions vying for his attention leaves virtually none of them comprehensible. "Captain Rogers, will you comment on the rumors that you are --" "-- continuing to work here in light of the Army's announcement?" "-- answer accusations that you assaulted a police officer --" The bracing wasn't enough. Steve's distress is abrupt and powerful, the absence of his shield keenly felt even though he has no thought to /use/ it. Disorienting snippets of his encounter with a similar crowd of reporters yesterday -- and subsequently with the police and a band of mutant youths -- flit through his mind. A cops slapping his shoulder as though they were comrades. A talking raven trying to perch on him. A scorpion girl who obviously wanted to make some kind of connection. A lizard boy making off in terror with his shield. The same cop drawing his gun -- All his diligently rehearsed answers desert him as he casts around for a way out, palpable panic rising to engulf him. Some time between here and there, Hive has decided the crowd is very much not conducive to Working, too. Packing up, heading out, he's just lighting up a cigarette outside when -- -- the chaos migrates. His eyes squeeze shut; he leans back against the mouth of the alley as the crowd surges forward to mob Steve. Flick. Flick. One thumb runs twitchily against the starter on his cheap plastic lighter. His hand-rolled smoke bobs between his lips. "Lord, give the man a fucking break." At a perfectly conversational volume, it isn't all that unusual that in the clamor none of the reporters or onlookers or their cameras turn to see who spoke. What is not unusual is that, at a rippling but steady swell they are taking this suggestion to /heart/, some apologizing for the intrusion, some simply remembering other appointments and places to be as they start to disperse. Hive remains in place, exhaling a cloud of smoke where he leans against the grungy brick wall in his tatty denim work shirt worn open over his brown hedgehog tee. Steve's panic attack does not conveniently stop the moment the crowd disperses, and it's several long seconds before he recognizes the only man left there with him. Quick flashes of his previous encounters with Hive and a rather different kind of anxiety precede the first verbal thought to resolve in his mind since he stepped outside: << Mind reader. >> Quickly followed by, << Oh shit. I need to stop thinking things like -- for heaven's sake, at least show some /manners/. >> "Hello," he says, even the simple greeting sounding awkward and stilted. "Uh, I'm sorry if you got caught up in." He flails one hand in the direction of the street, where the last of the journalists are boarding their van. "/That./ I'll uh, let you smoke in peace." His body, however, has different ideas. When he takes a step, his vision goes dim and his legs go weak. Hastily catching himself on the wall of the alley, he turns to lean against it, struggling not to hyperventilate. "Or. Maybe in a minute." "Guess you've been getting a lot of that lately." Hive's voice is gruff, but not unsympathetic. "Honestly can't believe you went right back to the day job. Might be a while before this dies down." The laughter that comes up out of Steve seems to startle even him. "Yeah, a bit." He shoves his hands back into his pockets. "Probably should have asked for a few days off," he agrees. << Can't really afford to. The least I can do is try to /feed/ myself... >> "I'll survive, though it's not really fair to my coworkers." "Guess at least it's harder to starve working here. Mel gave me leftovers when I was fucking broke and I didn't even work for her." Hive takes another long pull from his cigarette, closing his eyes and tipping his head back against the wall. After a brief pause: "Don't suppose you have a spare one of those shields just lying around?" "She's been very kind, and more patient than I had been ready to expect." It's not only Melinda Steve is thinking of, here. The montage of mundane tasks that he has needed help with runs through his mind too rapidly to make sense for anyone who doesn't have the context, but the Tessiers feature heavily. This cuts off abruptly at Hive's question. His initial flush of irritation fades quickly, replaced by weariness and a strangely poignant sense of loss. "No," he replies finally, quiet. "I'm pretty sure it was one of a kind." "Mmm." Hive is quiet a long time. Working on his cigarette. "Sucks," is his final summation. "Why'd he have it?" Steve blinks, surprised. << Weird way of putting it. >> But he does consider the question, replaying the incident in his mind. "He was curious, I think. Then the cop scared him and he took off." "Poor kid." Hive lowers his hand to his side, thumb flicking lightly against the tip of his cigarette. "S'got more reason than most to be scared of those pigs." "I know." Steve shakes his head once, quick. << How could I, though? >> "Or, at least I know how they are. How they /were/, in my day. With people they thought they could get away with hurting." He frowns. "I wouldn't have let them, but he didn't know that." Hive's eyes open wider, and he looks up at Steve with his brows raising. "You know? Man..." He starts to lift the cigarette back to his mouth, stops halfway there, just continuing to flick at it repetitively. "I /hope/ the cops in your day weren't half so fucked up. Couple years back they were making money off of locking up mutants to put them in cage fights. Lot of kids died. Lizardkid was nearly one of them." Steve straightens up slowly, the low, flitting chaos of images in his mind quieting beneath the weight of a growing fury. "I didn't know /that./" He swallows hard, rage clipping his words short. "Imagine there's a lot I don't know. About how this world treats mutants." "Didn't figure you did. I don't know the kid, but some of my..." Hive trails off, and this time he does actually take a drag of his smoke, sharp and long until it is nearly spent. "Had some family in there with him. Just fucking /kids/. Real good kids." He crushes the small nub end of cigarette against the wall and, straightaway, pulls out a case from the front flap of his laptop bag to start rolling another. The corner of his mouth twitches, briefly. "Don't tell Luci I told you, but he worked like fuck to blow that shit open and get it shut down. Not that he'd ever mention." "I'm sorry," Steve's voice is softer here, though his anger has in no way abated, "that this happened to your family. That it happened to children. To /anyone./" His teeth grind hard. "Luci...no, he didn't mention, but somehow I'm not surprised. He is an extraordinary man. So it was exposed, and shut down, and...swept under the rug, I'm guessing." "Nothing happened to a damn one of those cops." Hive chuffs, short and sharp. "Well. Not legally, anyway." He licks the paper, tamps it closed. "I wasn't saying it to blow Luci's horn or anything. I just mean..." His teeth grind -- he slowly unclenches them so that he can put the cigarette in his mouth. "Shit's /really/ fucked up. You don't even begin to know how fucked up. But there's people working to unfuck it. It's a hell of a fight, though." He bows his head to light his cigarette, his words a little muffled around it: "Sorry about your shield." Steve doesn't say anything at all for a while. Then, at last, he makes a somewhat ambiguous gesture that is neither a nod nor a headshake. "It's just a thing." A twist of sadness answers him, but he presses it firmly down. << Better to let it go. Have more important things to do. >> "I may be new here, but honestly I think some of the worst things in this time are not actually all that new." He straightens up away from the wall, and /doesn't/ almost pass out this time. << Thank God. >> "I am as game to help put it straight now as I was then. Shield or no shield -- I've always been the fighting kind." "We'd have to have a lot of hubris to think we invented evil." Hive stays slouched against the wall as Steve pulls up, his eyes tracking the other man's movements through a haze of smoke. "For what it's worth, I'm glad you're in the fight."