January 21st – 25th: Maverick Interlude
“Hey, Patsy?”
He found her at the second floor table watching the news on the widescreen tv, “Yeah, and how’d it go with wherever you left to early Saturday?”
“You know it went well, I met the Geist and to prevent him from sneaking in here again, and saving me hours figuring out how he bypassed my security. I gave him an access code. Relax, no one has access to your room but you. I would have to force a profile reset before I could get access. I would also have to go into a hashed shadowfile to even figure out your verbal password or passcode. Frankly, I don’t have time for either so your room is secure.”
Looking visibly relieved, “Thank you, I really don’t deserve how nice you…”
“…stuff it Patsy, that’s crap and you know it. Think of me as the Heaven’s karmic safety blanket. Wait, did they have the Peanuts in your…”
“…Charles Schultz, Charlie Brown and Linus, yeah totally!”
“Sweet!”
“Does anyone else in your super friends have an access code?”
“Miss Amazing, sorry Katherine and Geist is Richard. All I think I have told anyone about you is that I have a guest in the 2nd floor guest room.”
With a deliberately awkward wink, “Are you and Miss Amazing dating?”
“No, she said she likes me but wants to be friends. I wanted to thank you because in trying confrontational therapy by talking about what had happened to me I learned that I had over-shared with Katherine. Let’s be frank, no one wants a man who was raped in…”
“… stuff it back at you, Gary!” Patsy gets up and walks over to give Garrick a quick hug, “Anyone that doesn’t realize how great you are is an idiot.”
Blushing slightly, “Ugh, I wish you had never heard my work nickname.”
“Oh please, you grow up three quarters Arabic with a name like Patsy Palmer, and try not to get a set of nicknames,” making a huffing sound at the end and throwing a hand up as though he should speak to it.
“I yield, you win.”
Smiling, “So its Sunday, what did you plan on doing today?”
Pulling a chair out for himself while Patsy walked over and sat down in her chair once more. Garrick noticed this time she seemed be slow-walking although in those shorts he didn’t mind the view, “I wanted to say thanks for helping me out with Miss Amazing so I thought I would make a middle eastern dinner. I am not promising its going to be 100% authentic but I reached out to Horace and Trip for ideas to try as they are a bit of foodies. I am also making a pie for Ethel, but she really wants people to call her Mrs. Falkenberg. I remembered something my father said his grand dad did when new people moved into a neighborhood. So I am going to bake a pie then take it to her welcoming her into the group.”
“You’re so thoughtful.”
“Thanks,” Garrick smiled in his heroic form, but their was no fancy outfit and he was wearing some sweat pants and shirt sporting the Copernicus University branding, “first things first, breakfast and I was going to make spring rolls you want some?” Patsy emphatically nodded in agreement and went back to the news to keep up on current events.
Stopping at a store in Xenophan for a thermal bag to keep the pie warm Garrick is getting used to just moving around in his non-descriptive hero form with just street clothes. Driving his truck was a small adjustment on everything because he is normally 5’8″ tall and in this form he is 6’4″ tall. However, once he made a Garrick and Gavin profiles in the settings menu now it could be handled by his app on his crystal Pearphone. Heading over to Ethel’s house in Retropolis was easy since it offered tours once a month. When he knocks Shorty answers the door, “Ethel isn’t here, “ and closes the door on him. He had not realized Shorty was living with Ethel, but that is not what surprised him.
Garrick can hear Shorty ask, “Who was that?” And then Shorty says, “I don’t know, some guy with a pie.” He hears Shorty say “There’s pie?” Then Shorty says “No, he told him Ethel wasn’t here.” Shorty then says “We weren’t supposed to answer the door while she’s gone.” Finally Shorty says “Well someone make sure you tell her she had a visitor.” All these Shorty voices are at various volume levels, as if Shorty’s throwing his voice around the room, or there’s multiple Shorty’s.
He leaves the pie on the step and leaves a note:
“Mrs. Falkenberg, I apologize if I have offended you I will not contact you again without calling first, I am very, very sorry and please both of you enjoy this apple pie, welcome to the team.
– Garrick”
He tucks the note under the pie and after dissolving a body at her brother’s home he looks at the door he says, “Nope!” He gets into his truck and leaves. Either he’s an ass throwing voices, a super being with multiple bodies, or he’s the entire 501st from Star Wars! Every couple of miles he just says, “Nope! I’m not fucking dissolving anyone else, getting shot by pop up lasers, or assimilated as some kind of clone army in another galaxy far, far away. Granny may be weirder than Jake.”
Garrick just hopes his day goes back to being nicer, not weirder.
“Says the man with a magic sword,” whispered a voice in his head.
Garrick just sighs as he heads back to his home. He gets his list of about four dishes together as Patsy is sitting at the table. Garrick noticed an old fashioned notebook with papers crammed into it Patsy had started keeping. Taking a cue from his interactions with Katherine he said nothing about it convinced Patsy would share if and when she felt the need to do so. The dinner went well and they even watched two episodes of the Transformers afterwards before she went back to research and Garrick went downstairs to train and practice his sword cuts, moves and work out.
Tuesday the 23rd of January, 2024
Garrick pulls up to the Giving Tree and sees Katherine’s car already there. When he goes inside she is helping to setup tables and waves. Waving back he heads to the kitchen to help with dinner where he confirms to the director that he met Katherine through some mutual friends and he invited her to come and help donate time. The director thanks him and moves on to the plethora of other tasks they have to work on. Katherine can notice the kids genuinely love seeing Garrick and he is his normal 5’8″ self here. He is remarkable with children and being able to interact with them.
This night was Mexican food and Garrick brought extra food with him, so they would have enough to feed all the volunteers as well as staff and children. So she got to eat his street tacos, cemita poblana pulled pork sandwiches, and chilaquiles verdes. When she began to wait for him to come out and join everyone she soon became impatient and went looking for him. She found him cleaning pots and pans before he slid the tray into the washer, “Umm, your missing how quiet it is out there.”
He glances over his shoulder at her smiling, “Then I have done my job, however, everyone here works so hard for people that don’t have “gifts” and a future full of uncertainty I can wait to eat till I get home. Besides I always taste as I make it to ensure its good.”
“Do you need help with the dishes?”
“Nope, just go an enjoy the warmth of community, remember these are the people we are out trying to save. I come here to remind them you don’t need powers to be strong or good. You just need a good heart and willingness to act on it. You will stumble, and fall in life, but never stop getting up to try again.”
“So you really talk like this all the time? I thought it was just an act on patrol.”
“Ppphhhttt!!” Garrick stuck his tongue out at her, “Get out before I splash you with water. Oh don’t leave before I get a chance to chat with you after I help put the kids to sleep.”
“Okay,” she left him dressed in slacks, his Mallic Robotics polo, and the apron as he went back to working on the night’s dishes.
Later that evening they met in the parking lot of the Giving Tree and he shows her the text message. Katherine grudgingly agrees to go to the meeting. She’d like to go “alone” but with Garrick nearby for backup in case something goes wrong. Garrick nods and texts him to meet them at the Vault Coffee Shop. “Cool, thanks,” was the reply.
Wednesday the 24th of January, 2024
In the afternoon everyone meets at the Vault and Garrick is in his heroic form wearing the sweat pants and hoodie he brought to accommodate his lager frame. While they talk about a potential shared past more kids come into the Vault and hearing them becomes nigh impossible. He orders a toasted bagel and herbal tea while he waits and not long after being done she gets up and nods walking past him that it is time to go. He does so and she mentions one of the buildings they have been meeting on to patrol from. Garrick nods knowing where to meet her and she heads off as he turns for the direction of home.
When Gryphon and Miss Amazing caught up later she was a bit melancholy. He found her on the rooftop they both agreed to meet at. She was standing with her back to Gryphon, looking out over the city. Once he’d landed she began speaking at him. “Well, I don’t hate him anymore,” she said with resignation. “I don’t think I’ll ever like him, but I want to make this thing work. He’s the same as me – someone who’s running from the Nursery and The Sector. He was lucky to get out – he obviously got a lot more training than I did. Though, not in the use of certain abilities, that’s for sure.”
She turned her head to look at Gryphon over her shoulder. The wind billowed her hair gently in the other direction. “Thank you for having my back. This is… it’s nerve wracking. Always looking over my shoulder. Always wondering if today’s the day the organization finds me.” She closed her eyes and turned to look back over the city. “You’re the first person I’ve met since I started this new life who I feel like I can trust. I don’t want to keep lying, but I’m not ready to tell you everything yet. For now though, I can tell you that my name is… was… Michelle. That identity is dead and I can never go back to it – I really am Katherine Davis at this point. But it’s not who I always was. Until this happened…” She gestured to indicate her whole body. “I wasn’t anybody. I was ordinary.”
Gryphon is standing behind her, he puts a hand on each shoulder, but doesn’t try to hug her. Convinced of her role as his friend and partner, “What a hypocrite I would be to scorn you for a secret or secondary identity. Look, I came to meet my friend, Katherine, whom is simply Amazing! When you’re ready to tell me what you wish to share I will be here for you, unflinching. For in my old life some alien imperator took everything I love. I turned to crime to fix it and wound up in prison disowned by my family. On the run from my past I have a constant reminder that stealing is also what gave me Ashmadiel.” Then sword appears in the light behind her, slightly embedded in the roof like a sword stuck in the ground.
“When I accepted you as a fellow super and a partner, friend. I would judge nothing about you because I stole the item that gives me my power! Often I see what everyone can do and I wonder: ‘am I worthy to be among them?’ You are chief among these mavericks to me for your toughness, tenacity, wits, beauty, and mad kicking skillz. Besides, if there is a God I’d pray to, it would be then one giving second chances because if you’re not due then Katherine I’m screwed!”
She turned to face him fully then, acting again like the girl Gryphon had come to know this past week or two. She had forced a smile on her face. “Well, that’s enough of that for today. Let’s do a patrol, find some jerks to punch and kick into submission. I could use to let off some steam.”
Gryphon smiles and it is clearly visible, and cocky from under his visor as he grips the sword, “Lady, you had me at KICK!”
Off they fly up, up, and away!
5 Replies to “January 21st – 25th: Maverick Interlude”
I look forward to Garrick’s reaction upon meeting the Shorty Squad in person!
“He’s the same as me – someone who’s running from the Nursery and The Sector.”
OOC: Not…exactly…but he will to everything he can to ensure they stop coming after her. What better way then secretly getting her to be an agent/asset of Sector 10.
Devious in all the right ways.
Just because a character believes something doesn’t mean it’s true. 😉
I hope not, as I don’t want to be stranger than Jake!!