Penny Ross (deployed) wrote in rooms, @ 2014-12-29 01:19:00 |
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Entry tags: | !marvel comics, *narrative, penny ross |
Narrative: Penny Ross
Who: Penny Ross
Where: The Fire Escape outside of her apartment. Obviously.
When: Now?
What: Thinking thinky thoughts
Penny kept weird hours as it was, but this particular evening she had been out earlier and was drunk off her ass as she resumed sitting on her fire escape in the freezing ass cold. She was continuing her drinking from a bottle of Wild Turkey that she was only putting up to her lips to remind her of something, home maybe. Maybe drunken fire escape escapades in the freezing ass cold wasn't the best combinations of ideas, but she wasn't too concerned or afraid either. She was in "I could fight a bear" mode and that included being able to survive a drunken fall from a fire escape should that be necessary.
In her hand was a printed out email from her C.O. Informing her that if she wanted a deployment opportunity she could have one but.... Time was ticking on that clock. The email had been in answer to a request she'd made almost directly after her arrival in this weird place. She'd put in for an opportunity, her C.O. had tried to talk her out of it at first, but said he'd look into it, and a few days later he had. And here it was, almost 2015, and she had a decision to make. A hard one. She didn't think she could stay put much longer, not in this place where she knew next to no one, and a city she wasn't comfortable in, with co-workers she didn't know. She'd talked to a few people, and she had kin here, but Graham had gotten on just fine without her for the better part of a decade it seemed. And while she did worry that if she left something terrible would happen and she'd feel responsible - she knew that wasn't her place. It wasn't her place to fix anything here. It wasn't her place to do anything here, with any of this. Going to work day in and day out was not her style, talking to people - trying to make friends, trying to put a life together. That was her style. And that was not going to happen here in a place like this, a place this large, a place this confusing, and a place she didn't fit into one bit.
She had a handful of things she worried about, but they'd all be easily sorted. There were a million doctors to look after Clementine, and despite the fact she was completely inebriated right then - she could think of five or six she would suggest upon her departure. If she was deployed by the army there wasn't a lot she could do to get out of it. So maybe Graham would understand, and Clementine would take her doctor recommendations and she would be free to go. Free to live her life in the way she understood. And if she stayed here, in this door, there were these journals to keep in touch. And she'd still write letters to Graham and Clementine. It would be fine. Better than fine.
But she didn't know what was out in the rest of this world. What war meant in a world where Iron Man was real. Hell, for all she knew there was world peace in all the places she'd want to go.
She had tossed the idea of going to another one of them doors around, but she would lose everything she'd worked so hard for that had been handed back to her here. And she had busted her ass her whole adult life and she was feeling mighty protective of it all. And drunk. So drunk.
On the upside she was free to move about the worlds all she wanted, no ex to deal with. But no husband to bounce ideas off of either. Generally she found the entire marriage she'd been in to be a complete sham. He'd fallen in love with someone else, and maybe she was a shitty wife, but he'd fallen in love with someone else and that made the entire marriage a complete joke. Sex was sex, but love? Eugh. He'd fallen in love, not in sex. That was a huge difference. She hoped his dick fell off. Twice if possible.
So the spiral notebook she resting on her knees that had been blank except for the date, now began to fill up with words. This was a letter to that mother fucker. She told him about the Universe knowing she had to get so far away from him that it had sent her to a weird dimension to escape him. She told him that she didn't know anyone at work, and that it was a tragic reminder of her first stateside assignment. Which was just a terrible bittersweet reminder of when she'd met his stupid ass. She cussed him up one side and down the other, and told him that deployment had always been an easy choice and that it was all his fault she was being wishy washy now. She told him a joke she'd heard that he'd appreciate. And she told him that she hoped his new girlfriend was smarter than her and didn't actually marry him.
Cigarette ashes streaked the paper, and small drops of Wild Turkey made the ink run, but she kept writing. Writing until her fingers were red and dry with the cold air whipping around her. The space heater she usually brought with her doing nothing from its space in the window sill, but the wild turkey was helping. Nothing was helping her find a solution. Or an answer. Or a direction. But she kept on writing just the same.
Of course before she'd signed the letter with a flourish.
But not before she'd told him that she missed him.
And that she hoped his dick fell off.
Twice.
When she was done, she ripped the paper to pieces and threw it into a bucket that was half full of ashes. Ashes of notes and letters past. She set it on fire and watched it burn, the warmth barely comparable to what she'd been feeling from the drink. And on top of it went the email from her C.O. She knew she wasn't going anywhere no matter how badly the wanderlust hit. Instead she watched it burn. The fire on the fire escape...