Logs:Impending Implosion

Impending Implosion
Dramatis Personae B, Jax, Spencer, Shane
In Absentia	2020-11-19 "She didn't mean none'a that, FBI."
Location <PRV> B's House - Riverdale
This rowhome is not quite on the waterfront, but is an easy two block's walk away from the river through a lush and well-manicured greenspace. The building is three storeys high but narrow, topped with a small roof deck. Inside the space is neatly maintained, comfortably if blandly appointed. There are two bedrooms on the top floor, though one is functioning as a home office heavy in holographic displays and the other a workshop full of arcane high-tech equipment. Only the master bedroom on the second floor is actually furnished for sleeping in, and it is perhaps overshadowed in luxury by the immense adjoining bathroom with a large oval soaking tub. The first floor looks conspicuously un-lived-in, though the kitchen is state-of-the-art, the dining room small if perfectly serviceable, and the living room cozy with a convertible sofa, almost certainly nonfunctional fireplace, and a massive flatscreen. The lower floor of the apartment is still locked up tight, still looks unused, unlived in. Upstairs, though, the roof deck door is unlocked and there are plenty of signs upstairs that B has been home a bit now. There's a crisp citrus scent permeating the upstairs, lingering in the humid-steam warmth from a long soak and a fizzy bath bomb. Several sets of clothes have been picked through and discarded on the bed; B has evidently finally settled on purple skinny jeans with a soft black and silver sweater, both somewhat too large on her shrunken frame. There are still hairline scars spiderwebbing her skin, but at least the worst of the scaling is less visible, now. She's settled on a stool in her workshop, ignoring all the small machine parts right now in favor of a large toolkit filled mostly with the skeletal remains of small animals. Her head is bowed intently over a tiny half-finished statuette of a dragonfly, sculpted of delicately carved interlocking bones. The low thrum that circles down and lands on the roof is not entirely unlike the hum of the hoverbikes, though the scritching of Sugar's legs on the wood after is not quite like them, either. Jax has texted ahead; now he's antsy, restless as he hops down, helps Spencer down off the saddle before heading in. Against the cold he's dressed snugly, flannel lined overalls today in a bright patchwork of colors, thick purple-and-rainbow hoodie under a sturdy denim jacket, soft knit cap and gloves. He's peeling off his outer layers as he ducks inside, hasty to pull his boots off and leave them with his outerwear in a pile by the roof door. "B? Sweetie?" His anxious voice precedes him in his search; by the time he gets to the workshop doorway he freezes, looking over B with a small pinch of lips. Though he is tightly bundled up against the cold -- a puffy blue-and-silver hooded jacket on over a black hoodie with rainbow lining, heavy flannel-lined jeans, faux-fur lined boots -- and had been huddled against his father's warmth the whole journey, Spencer is still shivering a little as Jax eases him down to the roof deck. Even so, he's impatiently stripping off his jacket even before getting fully inside, teleporting his boots off and aside. Beneath the rainbow hood he pushes back he's wearing a black Bucharian kippah embroidered with stylized stars and planets in many colors, though despite its coverage it's still obvious on close inspection his head is shaved underneath. He pads quietly down the hall and peers through the doorway from behind Jax -- -- and then he's suddenly across the room and beside his sister. There's little strength in the bony arms he throws around her, his tears coming fast. Up close it's frightfully apparent how much weight he's lost since B saw him last, his eyes and cheeks sunken, his face pale and ashen. He suddenly pulls back, eyes widening as they look over the fine scarring on her skin. "Ohno does it hurt if we touch you I'm sorry," he blurts, still sobbing messily. The thrum outside has caught B's attention long before her family gets to the room, but she only properly looks up when they're in the doorway, eyes opening wider. She's a little tensed -- braced, maybe, for the suddenhug that inevitably comes. Her eye twitches, arm curling back around Spencer for a tight squeeze. "Yes." Her answer is simple, a small hitch of shoulder coming with it. She pats carefully at Spencer's back. "Woah. You look horrible." Her brow knits as she pulls back, frowning at Spencer and then over at Jax. "I mean, I knew you were -- it's just --" She blinks, head ducking. "I'm glad you're not dead, though. It's really hit or miss what news trickled into there like. Maybe New York is on fire? Maybe everyone's in jail? Maybe civil war is brewing? Hard to sift through." Jax stays in the doorway, hands folding first in front of and then behind him. "You got any food in this house? I brung some stuff from the school kitchen but it won't last so long." He unfolds his hands again, fidgeting with one buckle loop on his overalls. "City ain't much on fire. Folks been in an' out but I think now you're here most everyone we know's out free right now. Ongoing coup's a whole other mess." Spencer bites his lower lip. Mops his face with one sleeve, his tears easing quickly though he still sniffles. "Sorry," again, more calmly this time. "It's mostly not even the cancer, it's the chemo," he pipes confidentially. Then, with a sly smile, "I only have tumor cycles to go." He holds up his index and middle fingers, just in case anyone didn't get it. "I wanted to go to you so bad, so many times." Then his eyes go wide again. "Does Shane know yet oh no he's gonna be so happy!" B stares at Spencer, one set of eyelids blinking slow and then the other. "That actually hurts worse -- Why do you let him hang out with Matt? He's making a monster." She swivels on her stool, head shaking. "I do not think you'd have liked visiting prison, the food was -- not good." Her mouth twitches again, shoulders swaying slightly side-to-sde. "Coup? Too bad those robots didn't get to stick out the whole convention, huh?" Her eyes open wider. "I didn't tell him yet. I thought -- maybe --" She's looking at Spence uncertainly now, though. "Let him? If you got some kinda strategy from keeping Spence from going whereever he wants I'd be curious to hear." Jax's eye opens wider. The small o his mouth makes soon snaps back closed. "You wanna wait like, thirty seconds after they take execution off the table 'fore you start cracking wise 'bout that?" His head tilts back to inform the room at large: "She didn't mean none'a that, FBI." Spence's laugh is bright and gleeful -- apparently if he can't get amusement for his pun, dismay will do. "I mean, if I had I woulda found a way to get us both out, you know?" he doesn't sound as confident as he words on this point. "Yeah Trump lost the election but he won't concede and he's suing like, everyone about it." He doesn't seem to understand his sister's unfinished thought immediately, but when he does it's not subtle. He rises up onto his tiptoes and flaps his skinny hands as if in a bid to take off. "Oh! Oh! I'll take you to him! Maybe you should eat first do you wanna eat first I'll need to rest a bit before I bring you back but they probably have food in Minneapolis." "I'm perfectly capable of managing my own FBI agents thank you." B sniffs primly. "Anyway if they want to throw me back in jail apparently they have to fight S.H.I.E.L.D. over it now. They sprung me 'cuz they want me to save the world from impending implosion." This is all the explanation she offers before hopping off the stool. "Minneapolis definitely has food. I'm getting shoes." She scurries quickly from the room, pausing only briefly to squeeze Jax -- tight -- before disappearing out the room and down the stairs. Jax's eye widens; he hugs B back tight for the time that he's able. "Oh gosh -- please get your coats I'm pretty sure Minneapolis is doing actual winter already." He scrubs his palm against his eye -- it's only delayed, B already hurrying away when something catches up to him: "M'sorry, they want -- impending what?" "Whoa the world's gonna implode?" Spence sounds -- more excited about this prospect than he probably should. "I mean obviously not now that B's on it." The sudden faint blush in his cheeks might not be so noticeable if they weren't so colorless before, but suggests that perhaps he had wholly forgotten about such trivialities as coats before his father reminded him. He deliberately walks instead of blinking over to the exit, plopping down on the floor to pull on his boots. "Sorry I can't take you, pa," this sincerely regretful. "I'll hug everyone for you." --- Somewhere in Minneapolis -- he could by no means tell you where until his GPS has caught up -- Spencer appears beside Shane with his arm hooked gingerly in his sister's. "Surprise!" he bursts out, a bit too loudly for Indoor Voice. In case the entire other blue shark he brought with him wasn't obvious enough, he's gesturing at her grandly with his free hand. There are, anyway, no indoor voices needed; Shane is at the moment seated cross-legged on a park table, bundled in snug peacoat and crisp pinstriped slacks, a black facemask looped behind his head but currently pulled down around his neck as he shovels a gingery chicken salad into his face with a pair of cheap wooden chopsticks. He splutters when his siblings arrive, chopsticks clattering out of his hands, against the side of the plastic bowl and into the grass. Coughing, looking around hastily, his eyes opened wide-wide to swallow half his narrow face. "{Oh my god,}" he hisses in quiet Vietnamese, and then, "{Spence you can't be here you gotta take her somewhere with -- less cameras? No cameras? Maybe Hive's family could -- do we know if Ion knows anywhere that --}" B interrupts this with a shake of her head and a fierce hug, rising up onto her toes to throw her arms tight around her brother. "{I know, I'm sorry --}" Her eyes are huge to match her brother's. "{I won't stay long, I just -- couldn't vanish without saying bye to you, I had to come.}" Spence's eyes go wide and then wider as Shane speaks. He starts to open his mouth to reply, but then B does instead and -- his eyes go wider yet again. "{I kind of need to rest before I jump again, though...}" he hedges nervously. Though he doesn't seem too worried to pile another hug onto the twins -- no need for tip-toes, now that he easily towers over them both. "{Sorry, we're stuck here for at least a few hours.}" "{That's fine,}" Shane leans into the hug, returns it tight, though only for a quick moment. He's hopping down off the bench, scrambling his food together. "{Fuck -- eat this, when did they feed you last --}" He shoves the chicken at B, digging his phone out of his pocket. "{I'll ask Scramble -- she'll know where Ion is -- hngh. A few hours, that'll give us time to pack you some things together. Figure out some next steps -- someone's gonna be looking for you here first, though.}" B plucks up the bowl, climbing onto the table where Shane has just vacated it. She's casual about poking a claw into a stray piece of chicken, nibbling it delicately. "{Don't call Scramble let's just get Spence some food, rest for a bit and maybe,}" she says lightly, "{enjoy the fact that some shady-ass spies are getting the feds to drop all my charges.}" Her legs swing lightly, heels scuffing against the bench. "{I know it's been sold out for ages but I heard Ryan Black was in town and his new violinist's amazing, I was hoping we'd stay long enough to sneak in for the show.}" Spencer sinks down to sit on the bench attached to the table, just beside and below B. He claps a hand to his mouth and for a moment it's not clear whether he's trying to stop himself throwing up or laughing. He does finally let himself laugh when his sister gives up the real reason she's out. "{Sorry,}" he gasps, more out of breath than one might expect for a bit of laughter. "{Yeah maybe we can get back stage and meet the Big Star, too!}" "Wh --" Shane lowers his hand, phone held tight in it. His gaze skips between his siblings, gills slowly shifting beneath the heavy fabric of his coat. "Oh my fucking God --" He is heedless of the food in his ensuing tackle; heedless, even, of the chance of knocking his now-skinnier sister straight off the table. "You fucker," comes first, buried against B's coat as Shane squeezes her tight, and then, "... sure. I think I know a guy."