I Moderate (i_moderate) wrote in we_archive, @ 2006-07-26 19:24:00 |
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Entry tags: | maxine gibbons |
i_assist Sulking, brooding, and taking a walk [narrative]
The gingham dress was not her style. Neither was sulking, as Babs had so astutely pointed out. Max had had her fill of both over the past few days. She couldn't help the first, the blue and white dress was a constant companion along with random out bursts of 'Over the Rainbow' and 'Follow the Yellow-brick Road'. As much as she tried, she couldn't get the thing off.
Sometimes Max found herself thinking that maybe it was a good thing Jesse didn't want to see her right now (at least she assumed he wouldn't want to see her). Unfortunately, that tended to bring on the sulking, and she really was trying to get over that.
She'd started to resent Jesse for it, for making her feel this way over something so stupid. And it really was just that. Stupid. And it was his fault. Max had no qualms about blaming him for the entire thing, possibly because she was still mad at him. She felt… disillusioned. Yes, that was the right word. She'd somehow managed to fall in love with a man who didn't want to 'play house', so to speak. Not that she was ready to play house either, but privately the imagined thought of setting up home and family with Jesse had made her a bit warm inside.
Silly of her? Probably. So long after the fight she could half way admit to herself that maybe, only maybe, she'd jumped ahead. But only by a little, and she was still mad at him, and didn't think anyone could really blame him for it. Believe it or not, not all of her dreams involved Kevlar and leather suits with yellow bat symbols affixed across the chest. And she definitely wasn't dreaming about any red robin symbols. Even the Oracle symbol, the most appealing of all to her, wasn't all she dreamed of. Oh, Max was focused when she had to be, but she couldn't control her dreams, day or night. Nor any secret wishes she had. She had no desire to control them really, and didn't think Jesse has any business doing it either.
It wasn't like she'd been pushing it at him. Hell, if she hadn't grabbed that magazine he wouldn't have had to know about it anyway. Well, besides that apparent drunken night. But, still, that didn't count. She'd been drunk. Maybe Jesse was right, people said what they most wanted when they were drunk, but what right did that give him to hold it against her?
Max wasn't sulking now. Nope, she was brooding, the other thing Babs had told her not to do. But the more she thought about thinks the more broodish she became. Luckily she'd decided not to do it in the Cave this time. They were still dealing with various villainous situations, but she volunteered to go fetch food and water after Babs told Alfred to have a rest, and she made sure those fetchings left her enough time to get her sulking brooding for that hour in.
The dress wasn't helping either. When she ran out of steam brooding over Jesse, Max simply moved onto Delirium, cursing her and all of her other god-like siblings.
Babs rushed home when the computers in the Cave alerted everyone that her security had been breached yet again. Max was hoping this time it was some sort of false alarm. There was a look of worry on her face as she told Max to leave the Cave. For a moment Max completely forgot the brooding and listened to Babs. She left the Cave, taking her laptop with her up to her room. The point was to continue her work up there and she'd fully intended to. Everything needed doing, post-haste if Babs' home had been broken into again.
Max froze suddenly as she was walking up the stairs. Babs' house was being possibly broken into yet again meant they were in the equivalent of a Code Red. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out, or who was most likely behind it. Same person as last time if it was true. Babs had been muttering the name under her breath even as she left the Cave.
Jack, of course. With no Babs, no Bruce, and no Jesse, the house suddenly seemed too big, too empty, and too vulnerable. Wayne Manor was anything but unsecured, but suddenly Max's imagination was getting the best of her. Max understood why Babs had asked her to leave the Cave, they had no idea if this incarnation of Jack knew of the Wayne-Bat connection, and the didn't want to take the chance the Babs' house was a distraction just for Jack to pay a visit to the Cave.
But Max couldn't help but thing it would be just as easy for Jack to get into Wayne Manor-proper, if not easier. And her room was just a hop skip and a jump down from the stair landing.
She didn't stop long in her room. She dropped her computer on her bed and grabbed a light jacket to cover up the Dorothy-dress. Max had the feeling Jack would love this dress. That cued the brooding as she headed down the stairs, and she still didn't feel any safer being all alone.
Somehow Max felt better on the streets. The same streets she'd been hurt on before, yes, but at least as she walked now to clear her head there were people around her. Some were giving the skirt peeking out of her coat odd looks, but she felt safer. If she kept moving she made herself a harder target, better than staying in the manor.