Logs:I will study the way that is blameless. When shall I attain it?

I will study the way that is blameless. When shall I attain it?
Dramatis Personae Bruce, Leo
In Absentia	2021-10-26 "But for a lot of us I think it's a mixed bag."
Location <NYC> Evolve Cafe - Lower East Side
Spacious and open, this coffeeshop has a somewhat industrial feel to it, grey resin floors below and exposed-beam ceilings that have been painted up in a dancing swirl of abstract whorls and starbursts, a riot of colour splashed against a white background. The walls alternate between brick and cheerfully lime-green painted wood that extends to the paneling beneath the brushed-steel countertops. There's an abundance of light, though rather than windows (which are scarce) it comes from plentiful hanging steel lamps. The walls here are home to artwork available for sale; though the roster of prints and paintings and drawings and photographs changes on a regular basis it has one thing in common -- all the artists displayed are mutants. The seating spaced around the room is spread out enough to keep the room from feeling cluttered. Black chairs, square black tables that mostly seat two or four though they're frequently pushed around and rearranged to make space for larger parties. In the back corner of the room is more comfortable seating, a few large black-corduroy sofas and armchairs with wide tables between them. There's a shelf of card and board games back here available for customers to sit and play. The chalkboard menus hanging behind the counter change frequently, always home to a wide variety of drinks (with an impressive roster of fair-trade coffees and teas largely featured) though their sandwiches and wraps and soups and snacks of the day change often. An often-changing variety of baked goods sit behind the display case at the counter halfway back in the room, and the opposite side of the counter holds a small selection of homemade ice creams. A pair of single-user bathrooms flanks the stairway in back of the cafe; at night, the thump of music can be heard from above, coming from the adjoining nightclub of the same name that sits up the stairs above the coffeehouse. Evolve is not particularly crowded, Tuesday midmorning, which suits Leo just fine; there's only a few surreptitious stares and whispers in his direction. He's tucked himself into a comfortable corner armchair in the back, looking very much appropriate for the turn towards Proper Fall Weather in a black button-down shirt color-blocked with flame-colored diamond shapes, crisp indigo jeans, black ankle boots, his black fitted trenchcoat neatly folded and draped over the arm of the chair. He has earbuds in while he waits, and either hasn't ordered yet or it hasn't yet turned up; in front of him there's only a tablet that he's writing on in between glancing at his phone. Unlike his alter ego, Bruce does not need to duck when entering Evolve, but that's what he is doing anyway as he slips through the door. He's wearing a navy blazer that he sheds once inside, a plum shirt with the top button undone, brown corduroys, and brown penny loafers. After a nervous twitch of a smile at the barista on duty and an even more nervous visual sweep of the cafe, he makes his way to Leo. "Hi, ah...hope I didn't keep you waiting long." He transfer his blazer from one forearm to the other, then quickly back. "Have you already--" He jerks his thumb in the general direction of the counter. "Whatever you like here, it's my treat." "Oh!" Leo glances up, blinking wide-eyed behind his glasses; his first startled flutter of hand in the general direction of his face just knocks them askew and dislodges an earbud to send it to the ground. "Oh --" He successfully removes them on the next attempt, the earbuds as well, tucking both back into their respective cases and flicking the screen off on his tablet. "Sorry, I -- no, hello, no, you're fine. What? Oh --" He glances towards the counter, shakes his head. "No, I'd meant to get some of their pho but then I completely forgot." Some of Bruce's nervousness seems to leave him when Leo proves just about as awkward as he had been. "Pho, sure, I'll ah." He starts to gesture at the counter again, tries to abort mid-motion, and ends up just kind of flapping one hand coffee-ward, blushing. "Right, I'll...be right back!" He goes to place their orders and returns to drop into the armchair catty-corner from Leo. Then stands back up to arrange his jacket over the seat back before settling down properly. "It's good to see you again, though I'm sorry that we had to meet under those ah, circumstances. I hope you've been--" He frowns, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose where they'd started to slide down. "--haven't been needing to do. A lot more of that." "I meet a lot of people in circumstances like that," says Leo. A small frown furrows his brow. "Maybe less of the attacking but a lot of potentially terminal cases. Only three other rabies patients, though, as far as I've been able to tell, the rest who were exposed --" He stops, his frown deepening. "Well." For a second he just fidgets with his closed glasses case before adding, "-- I don't think I thanked you. For -- keeping Dusk out of jail. Most people wouldn't have." Bruce does not look particularly surprised or horrified at Leo's blasé commentary on his disease-wrangling. "I'm glad you were able to save him. I don't think I could have. That was the most advanced case that has ever been cured in recorded history--as far as I know, and I'm very thorough." He blinks at Leo, removes his glasses and absently polishes the perfectly clean lenses. "You give me too much credit. I'd like to think I would have gone to bat for him even if I hadn't known him, if I didn't have so much sway with Tony, or if I weren't a mutant." He studies his glasses intently. "I'll never know, but I do know what my bet would be." "Most doctors aren't working with my advantages." Leo is still fiddling with his glasses case, thumb slipping between the lid to open it just slightly, then let it clamp quietly back shut. His eyes open wider as Bruce speaks, his brows lifting. "Speculating on what some-other-you in some-other-circumstances might have done feels -- less abstract than it might once have been. Either way. I'm glad this you made the choice you did. Dusk helped save me once from a pretty bad -- well, I think it's no secret that the government isn't very interested in dealing fairly with anyone, but especially not --" His hesitation is small, as is the furrow again of his brow. "People like us." Bruce allows himself a soft, breathy snicker. "You can say that again. Jayasuriya and Veselý sure took advantage of yours, though." He shakes his head. "I did get a glimpse of some-other-me's choices, and it wasn't pretty. Maybe it was one of the reasons I saw the right action so clearly, with Dusk. I hope this lesson sticks with me long after the horror has faded." His glasses turn over and over in his hands. "It's--yeah, it's no secret. But I think they muster a lot more than just garden variety bigotry for you." "You saw --" Leo begins, then lifts a hand to touch lightly against his mouth. "You work with Stark? You worked with Stark. Did you see the... other... world." He drops his hand, one side of his mouth pulling briefly askew. "Oh, they'd hardly be the first researchers who --" His nostrils flare, the breath he exhales quick and sharp. "I scare the government. I mean, what I do is terrifying, but I think it's more terrifying to them the idea that -- that it'd get out the degree to which they were trying to use it to -- I don't even want to know." His expression is a little more pinched than before. Bruce blushes and slides his glasses back on what is perhaps a bid to hide the color. "Ah, yeah I--I was on that team. Not for the mutation," he adds hastily, "it's--I'm also a high energy particle physicist. I only saw a tiny corner of the other world, but yes. And worked with some...counterparts, from there." His expression clouds over, troubled, then clears again in short order as he refocuses on Leo. "Sometimes I think the government is only scared of things they find convenient to be scared of, but..." He wets his lips, and when he speaks again it's low and frightened, but if his words were meant to be a question it comes sounding just a bit too confident. "They're still trying to get you back." "I make them a lot of money, for one thing," Leo replies, oddly casual for the subject. "They give me new strains of diseases, I give them vaccines to sell. But, ah." His hand turns up in front of him. "They give me new strains of diseases. A lot of old ones, too, when they were fixated on weapons and not cures. I just wouldn't --" He swallows, his eyes cutting back down to the glasses case he's now clutching tight. "DJ Allred says in his world, the -- me there had a virus that could selectively target humans. Considering some of the things they infected me with, I -- I think they just worry. But mostly, I think they want the money." He returns to toying with the lid of the case, slow and a bit less steady than before. "Sorry," he's bowing his head, a slight flush in his cheeks, "you probably didn't invite me to coffee just to be -- depressing. At you." Bruce's focus is almost palpably intense, and he does not immediately reply when Leo stops speaking. "Weapons. They tried to use you to...what, incubate, refine, synthesize biological weapons." He does not actually sound all that surprised or horrified at this, either. "I didn't meet the you from the other side, but for a virus to be able to identify the x-gene, that is impress--" His mouth opens and closes, his eyes fluttering with discomfort, but he recovers quickly enough. "My God, you could design targeted oncolytic viruses. It would be fiendishly complicated but--but--" He reins this line of conversation in forcefully. "Sorry, um. I invited you to coffee because...it was an honor working with you, and I was excited to talk to another scientist--like me. And, yes, I'm fascinated by your abilities." Leo's brows draw together at this, briefly quizzical, and he swipes his tablet open. For a few moments he's tapping at it, Googling, reading, before deciding with a simple confidence: "-- oh. Yes, I think I could do that. Do you suppose you could get me one to look at?" He finally sets the glasses case down, his fingertip running along the edge of his phone though he doesn't turn it on. "It's -- odd, isn't it? Being a mutant, in -- well, it isn't exactly friendly. How do you -- deal with it?" "Oh, sorry--uh, yeah?" Bruce is blinking rapidly. "Not immediately, the layers of patents and proprietary technology around those things are insane. I could make one, but I wouldn't be able to test it--well, not easily, experimental cancer treatments quite understandably tend to be a last resort..." He shakes his head and pushes some of his slightly overgrown hair out of his face. "Right, ah--you probably don't need to hear my entire process there. Honestly, I deal with it by ah...staying closeted." His eyes scan the cafe around them. "Well, it's more of a don't ask, don't tell situation. Some people in the community--mutant community--already recognize me, so sooner or later it'll come out in any number of my fields." He chews on the inside of his cheek. "I'm kind of a shapeshifter, and I can't always control the shifting. Which, I really shouldn't complain to you about that, you haven't got the luxury of...not telling." "It still doesn't sound easy." Leo's brows have scrunched sympathetically. "Waiting and wondering when that shoe will drop. And not having control of your own body sounds like -- its own particular kind of -- " His head shakes. "We all have our own stresses to navigate, I think. I'm sorry. So many people around me always -- I feel like have so much pride and joy in all this and. Sometimes it's very hard, you know? To see what about this has been..." His hands spread, a bit helplessly. Bruce looks up at Leo, his expression startled but not upset. "Oh. Yes, that's exactly it. I was terrified of myself for years after I manifested. Maybe I still am." He nods slowly, as if still mulling this all over. "Maybe it's easier for some people, with some kinds of powers, to find pride and joy in them. Maybe for some people it's just impossible. But for a lot of us I think it's a mixed bag." His hand waves vaguely in the direction of his head. "As frightening and dangerous and downright inconvenient as my mutation is, it's saved my life--saved other people's lives. And yours--" His hand, still raised, makes a "mind blown" sort of gesture. "--I know it's cost you a lot, probably more than I can ever imagine. But the lives you've saved--directly and indirectly--is incalculable. And I can't help thinking how many of our troubles are not actually caused by our mutations at all. They're about how...baseline humans treat us." "I didn't have time to be scared of myself -- I didn't know I was a mutant until I was in some lab getting poked at. I've learned, though. To be scared. But you are right. It's been lifesaving as well." Leo pauses as their order arrives, head dipping in thanks though the many-armed barista hasn't actually left the counter and probably does not catch it. "I know -- to a degree you are right. It's still -- the world isn't going to change overnight. It still hard not to wish sometimes just for normalcy." One corner of his mouth twitches upward. "But failing that, I guess, oncolytic viruses."