James was literally on edge about every little thing, side-eyeing anybody he saw, and ducking out of the way of anything he didn’t like the look of. The only upside so far was that Francis had been sucked into this right alongside him and everybody he’d spoken to on the network seemed friendly enough.
He just hoped that Azari, Torunn and Henry were okay wherever they were. He was going to try not to worry about them, but he knew himself well enough to know that he wasn’t going to be able to stop himself. Wouldn’t be able to until they were reunited, either here or back home.
Thankfully he could see Francis face to face and satisfy himself that the other was okay or as okay as he could be all things considered.
He rocked up at the pizza place in question and pushed open the door, light eyes immediately scanning the vicinity for one Francis Barton.
“Hey blondie,” Francis shouted from where he’d managed to con himself a huge pizza and a corner booth, “over here.”
He was relieved that James, at least, had ended up here. Selfishly. Since he wouldn’t want anyone really to be yanked out of their home and thrown into this messed up town but also he didn’t want to be here alone.
He pushed a huge slice of pepperoni pizza towards the other half of the booth as James walked over and grinned at him. “Welcome to crazy town. Literally. At least we’re in slightly better than others: we saw some pretty weird shit in the future. Sit down, have a free pizza. Tell me what the fuck you think is happening and how we can get home. Or even if we wanna get home. Do we want to get home?”
James’ head swiveled when he heard a familiar voice call out, “blondie,” and he snorted as he spotted one Francis Barton looking right at home and like he owned the pizza place even though he’d never stepped foot in it before.
He slipped into the other side of the booth and happily accepted the large slice of pizza that was pushed in his direction, his stomach growling eagerly in anticipation at devouring it in a few quick bites. What? He had one hell of an appetite.
“It’s either magic gone wrong or we’ve both hit our head and this is just one huge delusion,” he shared around a mouthful of pizza. “I was clinging to the latter part of that idea until I took a look at the network and that shot down that part of the theory.”
The whole wanting to get home thing was… well, James still wasn’t sure. He didn’t miss all the bullshit involved with Maria Hill but at the same time he did miss the others. “Lemme think on the last thing a little longer.”
“If we can bring the rest of your family over then fuck going back, right?” Francis asked, taking a slurp of his milkshake and then shoving it over the table towards James. He was aware that some of the foods that he took delight in the novelty of weren’t quite so interesting to James, since he’d been raised by Tony Stark in his own personal frozen utopia or whatever but Francis kind of appreciated that James never teased him for it after that first time.
He pulled a piece of pepperoni off his own slice and tore it in half. “I’d have put money on the delusion too, but yeah. Too many people, and unless we’ve been pulled into some kind of magic hive mind shit? I mean, that’s possible. Pretty sure my dad knew someone who could change the world whenever she wanted just by waving her arms around.”
“Mm, you got a point there,” James agreed with a nod. “That’s if this place is less fucked up than the place we came from.” There was a saying about leaping out of the frying pan into the fire and James did not want that, now or well, ever.
He caught the milkshake as it was shoved over the table at him and leaned forward to latch his lips around the straw, swallowing generously. “That is good. Really good.”
His eyebrow arched at the knowledge that somebody could just wave their arms around and change the world. That was some serious stuff right there. “We need to pick a room as well.”
“Communal living is pretty dangerous somewhere where we don’t know what’s actually going on,” Francis pointed out. He had a basket of fries on the table, too. He took a couple and dunked them in the milkshake. It didn’t taste as bad as he expected, which was a nice surprise. “Plus, I don’t think anywhere can be as fucked up as the places we came from. At least the power works here.”
After all, Francis had lived until very recently in places where electricity was pretty much an afterthought.
“As long as we’re not sharing with anyone else, I don’t really give a fuck where we sleep. Higher up if we can, I guess? With a lockable door.”
“You watch my back and I’ll watch yours,” James said simply and succinctly. “That way nothing will get the drop on us.” He reached across and helped himself to a handful of fries, watching as Francis dunked some into his milkshake. “Any good?”
Power was a massive tick in the ‘yes’ box for James and so was running water, but everything else was kind of iffy. He didn’t like the idea that their fate as it where was out of their control, it felt too much like being under Maria Hill’s thumb again.
“Think we should head there next, try and secure one of the rooms on the top floor, maybe?”
“Better than you’d think,” Francis admitted, pushing the fries towards James again. “Weird salty-sweet combo that tastes alright.” But then he’d grown up with something that could hardly be called a ‘diet’ anyway.
He nodded, rubbing the side of his jaw and then shifting a little, tucking a foot underneath himself. His bow and three-quarters full quiver were tucked down under the table out of sight, he was just grateful that he hadn’t come through completely unarmed.
“Yeah, sounds good. This place better have a stairs and not just an elevator.”
James picked up a couple of fries and mimicked what Francis had done, chewing slowly and thoughtfully as he considered the flavours. “Huh, that is not as bad as I was expecting that it would be.”
“The sooner the better,” he affirmed with a nod. “I get the feeling that this place is going to fill up fast considering how many people are already live on the network.”
Maybe it was selfish but right now James was just thinking about what was right for him and Francis, he didn’t know anybody else well enough to give a crap.
Francis snorted. “How many people do you think are gonna get pulled here?” he asked, shovelling another few fries into his mouth. “Let’s just get a room for ourselves and we can fuck the rest of this place off until we work out what’s going on?”
He glanced over at the waitress and gave her a big grin that was more charming than he would ever admit to. It was the same waitress that had given him the food for free because he looked like he ‘needed feeding’.
“Another milkshake, honey?” she asked.
“Yes, please,” he said, “it’s really good.”
She gave the two of them a soft smile and clicked her tongue, turning away to head back behind the counter.
“If we’re gonna be here for the long haul,” he added, “we’re gonna need money.”
James watched the interaction between Francis and the waitress, snorting softly as he basically flirted with her to get free food. Not that he was going to complain, Francis would share, but it still amused him to watch.
“Pretty sure we can find a job doing something,” he remarked with a shrug.
He pushed his fingers into his hair and tipped his head.
“What that something is? I have no fucking idea, but it’ll be better than being broke.”
“Fuck knows,” Francis agreed, looking back at James and shrugging. He stuffed another handful of fries into his mouth. “I’m guessing everywhere here has places where you can go work for them, so I figure we can just… pick one of those? See what happens?”
He didn’t really want to, if he was honest, but he supposed it was important to make sure they earned their keep, or whatever it was they needed to do around here.
“You think the world’s gonna go to shit?”
“Pretty much.” That was about as far as James’ decision-making had gotten to, but he knew better than to plan too far ahead because all it did was make things worse especially when the thing you planned for didn’t end up happening or something else happened and you had to adapt.
Neither of them had any real concept of money or what budgeting was but they were smart, they could learn.
“I mean, it’s entirely possible.”
“Then,” Francis said, lifting his milkshake in a salute, “here’s to at least being together when the world goes to shit.”