Kate Bishop is practically an Avenger. (hawkeyetoo) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2017-09-01 22:01:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, doug ramsey (cypher), kate bishop (hawkeye) |
Who: Doug Ramsey and Kate Bishop
When: Recently
Where: A restaurant attached to a bookstore
What: two friends hanging out
Rating/Warnings: Low/None
Status: Complete
Doug smiled as he stepped into the restaurant, rubbing one arm, not looking down at his shirt, or what he knew lay beneath it. He had changed, he knew. He also knew that it wasn’t doing anything other than itching and making him twitch a lot. But it was here, under his shirt.
He had dreamed again, recently, of being Douglock, a fusion of his and Warlock’s memories and see material created from the ashes of Warlock’s body somehow. Warlock being a techno organic being, an alien he had first met on the night he had learned that he was a mutant. Who, somehow, after Doug’s death, had also died, then those cells from both deaths had merged, been sparked to life, and come back as a whole person, a confused, somewhat amnesiac person, but whole, nonetheless.
And he had woken from dreaming of being this Douglock, with a small patch of his skin replaced with non-malignant techno organic cells. He had immediately strapped on the techno organic jammer device he had gotten from his dreams, and he was hopeful, But he had no idea how well it was working. He knew he needed to tell Kitty, and maybe others. He knew he shouldn’t be out in the open, but he just wanted… he just wanted one more normal thing, before whatever else happened. So here he was, hoping to hang out with a friend.
***
Kate arrived a few minutes after she was planning to, though she was still on time for their lunch date, and saw Doug from behind. She stepped over to him and up beside him, making her presence known. “Hey.” She said, and gave him a little grin. “Been waiting long?”
***
“Not at all! Hi!” He smiled to her and clapped a glove-covered hand to her shoulder. “How are you doing? What have you been up to?”
He smiled warmly at his friend.
***
“Nothing much,” Kate replied. She was being honest, too--not a whole lot had changed for the brunette in a while. She was still teaching archery, working at Victrola, and running her self defense classes. Clint had gone completely deaf, but nothing else had really changed. And that was good. Kate liked it when things stayed the same.
“How are you?” She asked. “Thanks for the invite to lunch!”
***
“I’m… mostly well. Dealing with a dream thing, but otherwise well. And you are welcome.” Doug smiled at her, and nodded.
“I thought we could actually hang out sometime when you are not sick or injured you know?” he grinned at her.
***
“Oh, those damn Dream things.” Kate said, frowning just slightly. “Anything I can help with?”
Together they moved to an open table near the door, Kate giving the head waitress a smile as they took their place. “Yeah,” she said to Doug, “Those times seem to be few and far between lately!”
***
“Yeah. It’s a mess.” He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I am hoping this one fades or changes quickly.”
He pulled back his sleeve and showed her the small patch of skin near the elbow of his left arm, which looked, at the moment, like circuitry, yellow in color. His dampener on his wrist glowed in time with it.
“Technoorganic virus from my dreams. I spent some time in them as a being made of this stuff. I have a dampener on right now, making it inert, but I have no idea whether or not it will spread because of the dreams. Or fade, tomorrow.”
***
“Wow. That looks pretty nasty,” Kate said, taking a look at the circuitry on his arm. When he mentioned it was a virus, she scooted and leaned back a little, giving him plenty of room. “...whoa. That sounds pretty nasty.”
***
He slid the sleeve down and then he smiled. “It’s okay. I have a jammer on it and it can’t infect anyone, but yeah.” He sighed. “Fun times, huh?”
He smiled faintly.
“I know I will be okay, in the long run. Just got to get by now.”
***
“Fun times, sure. If by fun you mean not fun at all.” Kate frowned, still leaning back. She didn’t like the look of it, jammer or no.
“...how far have you Dreamed? This is a Dream thing… so like… your Dreams sound totally different from mine.”
***
“Yeah, pretty much that.” And he nodded. “Uhm… I’ve dreamed about two years worth of dreams, long enough to face lots of super villains and to die in them.” He shook his head.
“And then to rise again, as a half machine-half man merger. It’s the year that the Phalanx nearly conquered the Earth.” he wryly sighed. “The Avengers never responded to the requests for aid that were sent. Nor did the Fantastic Four. As usual.”
Mutants, in any world he had heard of, usually faced these things alone. But here he was, with his friend, who was not a mutant. Because he trusted her, and he liked her, and he needed a friend he could trust, damn it.
***
“Well there are definitely villains in mine,” Kate agreed. “And the Avengers.” That part sounded very similar. But the stuff with the Phalanx and the half machine-half man? She wasn’t so sure about all of that. “I’m not sure why they wouldn’t … give help where help was needed,” she added, frowning a bit.
***
Doug smiled a little, shaking his head. “Sorry, but the Avengers and the other super-teams have always turned a blind eye when it was inconvenient for them to act and possible lose their popularity and political backing.” Sadly a true fact about their world.
“But here, life is better, so I try to concentrate on here;”
***
“Well I’m glad it’s better here.” Kate thought her life was a lot better here, too. Here she had Clint. There… well, she hadn’t really figured anything out for herself. So she preferred the real world.
“Hey, listen, I hate to do it, but I should probably cut this short. I’ve got a meeting with this lady who runs Girl Scouts stuff in the area. I’m trying to do some self-defense classes for young girls, and I thought that would be a contact to try.”
***
“No worries. Go. Do the thing. That sounds like a good idea, really.”
He paused, then hmmmed. “I hope it works out for you.” She was a smart and strong woman and he knew things would go well for her. He knew it.
***