Pre-barbeque

[24d_245t_tcdd]

Even aggressively under-socialised heroes with virtually no external hobbies or entertainments have certain chores which they must do, regardless of inclination, time, or other pressing matters. Chores such as the utterly mundane need to go shopping. For food. Plain, ordinary, food.

So, of course, Agent Orange is not dressed as himself, but rather as his secret identity, which is rather more secret than most. He is wallpaper; about as ordinary as it is possible for a man to get with virtually no feature standing out sufficiently to be a starting point for a description should he be witness to or suspect in something.

He was standing in the vegetable section of the store, a Whole Foods because he found the price an equitable trade for the quality of foods, doing meal planning for the week as he judged the benefits of asparagus versus those of bok choy.

Comments

[futures_of_ash]

The woman that turned the corner, as if she'd simply been in the next aisle over, as if she were normal was anything but wallpaper. Granted, descriptions would vary depending on what feature a person looked at but Rachel tended to stand out. Today her hair was done in several elaborate braids, though her battered jeans and t-shirt were still less than fancy.

At least she seemed to be wearing shoes?

Regardless, she smiled and came up next to his elbow to peer at the vegetables that had his attention. "What are those?"

[24d_245t_tcdd]

"Hello, Rachel. This is asparagus, this is bok choy. I am trying to decide if I which I want to purchase this week." There was more inflection in his voice than when he was in the mask, although not by enough that he wouldn't be considered under-emoting anyway, "Your hair looks very nice today."

[futures_of_ash]

She leaned her chin on his shoulder and reached forward to poke the selections thoughtfully. Asparagus and Bok Choy. Huh. "Which one tastes better?" This should be, naturally, the deciding factor!

Oh, hey, he noticed her hair! "Thank you! An old hunter did it up for me since it's what he did when he first met me."

[24d_245t_tcdd]

"I like both of them." was the response, "For different things, at different times. It is not always as easy as which tastes better." He nodded at her explanation of her hair and offered a very, very faint smile.

[futures_of_ash]

"Ah. I don't cook." She chuckled and started poking something else. It happened to be an eggplant. "It's nice to see you smile." Instead of just know he was smiling!

"Now isn't a good time to come with me huh?"

[24d_245t_tcdd]

"I will need to stop by my house." he said simply, looking away from her, "I assume that this is the mandatory barbecue outing?"

[futures_of_ash]

"Do you mind if I follow you there?" She had to ask! After all, his world, his home, his...safety zones. She could wait elsewhere easily! "And you know, if you drop your voice just a little you can make it sound like I'm holding hostages against your attendance or something."

[24d_245t_tcdd]

"You may come with me." he stated, putting the bok choy in his basket and the asparagus back in the bin, "This was the last thing I needed to pick up."

She got a confused look at her comment regarding hostages.

[futures_of_ash]

"Thank you." She did prefer not to be hanging out staring at odd things instead of hanging out with him? Ah, confusion. She wrinkled her nose at him waved toward the lines. "It's not a funeral. It could be fun. I've heard more excitement about the world coming to an end."

[24d_245t_tcdd]

He shrugged and said, "Social activities are not exactly my thing, Rachel."

[futures_of_ash]

"Social activities are necessary for social creatures." She shrugged easily. "Which humans, and human bases, are." She was not acting inhuman in the store at least? Or even glowing!

Just arguing, gently, with a friend!

[24d_245t_tcdd]

"I am coming." he pointed out, "As soon as I have my groceries at home." He just didn't see the point in pretending to be excited about it.

[futures_of_ash]

"Maybe be excited about something else then?" She sighed and traced fingers over the glossy pages of the newspapers at the checkout line. "Seeing my home? Or part of it at least. The woods are nice. And the lake." And now...she didn't know how she felt. She knew it was bad for him to continue on as he did but...bad for forcing him. She was forcing him wasn't she?

Damn.

[24d_245t_tcdd]

"I am pleased to see your home." But, no, not particularly excited. It would be better, in his mind, if it was just the two of them and he didn't have to attempt to be social with strangers.

[futures_of_ash]

She sighed and laid a hand on his shoulder, trying to be reassuring. "They're good people." The ones at the barbecue were anyway! "And they don't tend to be pushy. If you get tired we will leave." As simple, and as easy, as that.

[24d_245t_tcdd]

"Thank you, Rachel." he paid, and headed out to his car (about as nondescript as he was) before driving towards his home.

It was nice, if not particularly outstanding. Just a little one bedroom place in a quiet suburban neighbourhood. "This is my house."

[futures_of_ash]

Rachel was...well, she would never get a driver's license. She had no shame in turning her head and peering at anything that caught her attention as they passed. She hadn't seen Seattle before after all, why not stare and tilt her head and crane around?

His house, once they'd arrived and she'd taken a grocery bag so she was helping, was eyed. Carefully. In that way that meant she may not be only looking at the paint. "It makes you feel safe," she noted after a moment.

[24d_245t_tcdd]

"Yes. It does." He agreed, opening the door. It was Spartan inside, with only a few prints on the walls and very little colour. Safe, but not warm. "Just leave the bag on the table and I'll put things away, then we can go."

[futures_of_ash]

She strode through the door and house to find the kitchen and set the bag down gently. Then? Oh then she was stalking through the livingroom, peering at the prints and tilting her head over things. Because, really, why not look around a person's house?

"What do you do when you're here?"

[24d_245t_tcdd]

"...Eat, sleep, and meditate." he said blankly, "Sometimes I read, if I am too sore to go out at night."

[futures_of_ash]

"Ah," no wonder it didn't feel incredibly supportive? It was a place, and a safe one, but not precisely...a home? She didn't know. She would have to ponder it. "You're not sore now are you?"

[24d_245t_tcdd]

"No, thank you. It has been a fairly low key week." he said with a shake of his head. He started to put groceries away, rapidly and without having to think about it.

[futures_of_ash]

"Oh good. I'm not a healer." Best she would manage would be pain dampers on the nerves and some teke on bruising! "I could help a little if you were hurting...but better that you're not."

[24d_245t_tcdd]

"I do not use healers." he said with a small shrug, "It is too likely that I would get used to it. Depending on others powers isn't wise."

The creation of a door

[futures_of_ash]

When they arrived at the garage where cars that were sometimes shuttles were parked Rachel seemed distracted, a little disjointed, ill at ease. It was less a matter of worry than of knowing she was going to do something others could not know about. A sliding into something...far less, and far more, than human.

Flame slid up into her hair and she paused, laying her hand on one of the simple, concrete pillows. Along her arm flowed...ink. Ink was the best term for it; swirls of blackness that crept from her skin to layer over the concrete until it formed a thick, stylized bird. The watch dog, the alarm, set elsewhere so it would not notice.

Beside James, Hank caught his breath and lifted a hand almost, but not quite touching what would normally be a tattoo. After a moment he shook his head and led them to a door, a plain grey door in a parking garage that read 'Employees Only'. It opened onto a small concrete room with a breaker box and otherwise empty walls. "Will this work Rachel?"

The redhead poked her head in, stared at the wall across the from the door and nodded. "Yeah, easily. No one else but those I introduce will be able to sense or use it..."

Hank nodded and ushered James back out of the room, closing the door with a firm click behind them. "Incidentally, James, should you have questions about our universe or the people you have met I am ever happy to oblige." Because who could know Rachel and not have questions? She had to tendency to set the definition of reality on it's ear.

Daily if not more.

Inside Rachel was reaching, twining and pressing her fingers through the wall to touch the wild, tearing energy that was what she called between. People told her of theories where realities all lay nestled, one against the other or even overlapping to but unseen. That wasn't how she found them to be.

To her realities were like bubbles in an ocean; small spheres of calm, perfect and delicate in the tides around them. With careless acts, with too much force, a bubble could burst and destroy everything in an instant. There was a part of her that always hungered to press powerful fingers against those shivering reality films just because she could.

She was no creator of whole universes, she did not craft and breathe power into a void to bring about whole stars and planets at once; but when presented like this, when seen through a quirk of Rachel's abilities rather than the awesome powers of her phoenix self? There was temptation to destroy.

She did not though, instead she called. She trilled, looking for that right frequency that spoke of James and his home. That spoke of Agent Orange and his justice. Out there in the wash of power and chaos of realities there was a bubble that held everything dear to her friend and if she could draw near her own then there could be doors crafted.

It was there, distant and sluggish to answer her call. It held little in common with the reality Rachel now stood in after all, no reason to draw closer, and there would be danger in drawing it closer than it wished. Terms of distance did not apply to where the bubbles of reality paused, but Rachel hoped it was close enough that her doorways would never put others at risk, yet far enough to keep James's home safely separate from her own.

The connection, the doorway itself, was not hard. If it cloth it would be woven; if it were wood it would be built, and what she did with her hands her power could be called either. Lines of energy trailing soft as melted sugar and just as sticky sinking and stretching across chaotic nothing to wrap around each other. Along those lines flowed stronger energies, burning and bright in the darkness as they melded together into solid, unshakable holds.

And like all she touched this pathway, this bridge, was alive. In her little concrete room Rachel knelt, a hand petting and stroking the air as she murmured to this creation, telling it of the one it had been made for. She spoke words that James would never think to use to describe himself, ringing, tinkling words that told of the layers she saw and the energy he felt of. Singing, soaring scripts about the flavor of his emotions and the steadiness of his control.

It was a wild, burning introduction that made the air around her shine and sing in resonance; soaring, high songs leaking through the door behind her to drift to the ears of those listening. Or the hearts. Or the minds. It was easy to hear Rachel when she spoke on so many levels. What she did was magic and imagination; a twisting of reality to suit her needs.

When she finished the air rang with silence, heavy and expectant, a world holding it's breath before the first peal of thunder. There was no thunder though, no crash or flash of fury, simply a soft click as Rachel opened the door to the breaker room and beckoned the men back in.

The wall...was a wall. A perfect, seamless plane of concrete. Uninspired, unimaginative, and utterly mundane until Rachel lifted James's hand to place upon the surface. Then the doorway purred, recognizing the man, and it flowed to life in a wreathing and writhing of colored flame. A hole that opened up into his basement, as asked, a mere step away to travel between realities.

And Hank...was smiling. Smiling so hard that there might be tears in his twinkling eyes. "I've missed you Rachel, I'm glad you didn't change." he whispered quietly. And Rachel, a far off look still in her eyes and a wild yearning to go forth and do more, create and rend...smiled at the men and drifted back out to the parking garage to retrieve her tattoo from the pillar.