Logs:Second Fiddle

Second Fiddle
Dramatis Personae Sam, Steve
In Absentia	2021-07-14 "Oh well that's a relief then." (Steve and Sam debrief after escaping Doom.)
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, some of them clearly temporary supplement for the inadequate overhead lighting. Steve has been up for a while, if he was ever asleep at all, though he had been fairly quiet about it until recently. Now, in a white a-shirt and comfortable jeans, hair sticking all askew, he is apparently trying to make breakfast. Normally this is a fairly simple proposition for him, even if his offerings tend to be bland. Today... Well. Maybe pain doré was a bit ambitious for this particular morning. However disorganized, though, at least most of the ingredients -- including actual spices, plural -- have made it out onto the counter, and nothing is on fire. Yet. Sam is only just emerging from his own room, currently wearing white undershirt, flannel pajama pants, a highly skeptical expression. He fetches up against the counter, examining the ongoing breakfast prep for a moment before looking up to Steve. "Huh. Fancy and all but none of that look like an apology." "The fancy breakfast," Steve says, shaking (probably not nearly enough) cinnamon into the egg batter, "is supposed to be part of the apology. This is amazing when Luci makes it, but ah..." He looks up at Sam, shoulders sagging just a touch. His right hand, unencumbered by spice, presses hard against the countertop. "I'm sorry." "You want to call him over? He have some part in your shenanigans, I'll hear his apology too." Sam crosses his arms against the counter, leaning down against them. "Which part you apologizing for, part where you run off 'cross the world on some suicide mission or part where you didn't even see fit to give me so much as a 'hey, Sam, 'bout to go be a damn fool' first?" "He didn't have anything to do with this fiasco." Steve beats the eggs again, though it looks quite unnecessary. "Probably would have been less disastrous if he had." He sets the mixing bowl down. Looks back up at Sam. "I was thinking of the second one, but I guess both. It wasn't supposed to be a --" His jaw tightens. "Would have told you if I had time, but DJ just took off and I didn't want him in the wind with no backup." Sam pulls in a deep breath, lets it out slow, his fingers tapping lightly where they rest against the crook of his arm. "There a story behind that? Man's got himself a whole world to adjust to and the kinda spotlight this all got on it now -- well. 'spect it'll get uncomfortable before people ask why a mutant from another world invaded Latveria. Don't think they'll give him the same grace they will you." Steve actually, physically winces. "There is a story, but that doesn't really help DJ now." Perhaps forgetting he had done this part already, he starts adding more cinnamon to the batter. "Maybe asking him to join this project at all was a mistake, but in this particular case -- again, I was not expecting him to take off like that, or we could have discussed things like...failure and fallout." He stops, frowning down at the bottle in his hand. "I had been planning to go alone." Sam's eyebrows hike up. High. He just levels a long look at Steve, at this. Steve looks up when Sam does not immediate reply, his own brows furrowing in apparently genuine perplexity as to what he might have said to warrant That Look. "What? The man's been through so much, and the last we'd talked about it he didn't think he was ready for a real fight. I respect that completely." "Planning to go alone, man, you --" Sam pushes himself up off the counter with an exasperated chuff. "Naw, why'm I even surprised. 'Course you were. You know what, you can eat your damn breakfast alone, too." Steve's mouth pulls hard to one side. "In retrospect that was a terrible plan. But I wasn't trying to get myself killed, I just --" He braces both hands on the counter. Doesn't look at Sam. "Don't know what the heck I was thinking. Last time I did something like that I did get killed." "Oh well that's a relief then. Might shock you to know I'm actually relieved you weren't suicidal since you clearly don't give a single shit about anyone in this world." Sam just shakes his head, arms crossing over his chest, now. "Did you stop for a second to think about how I'd feel? How anyone would feel? No, why would you bother. Got us all playing second fiddle to your ghosts, you don't got the heart left to care. But I care, Steve, and maybe one day that'll mean something to you." He turns, now, walking back to his room and closing the door heavily behind him.