The Universe's Mixer

Hannibal's adjustment period for his twinned soul was brief. He took in the boy and made him a part of the man. He made sure that the memories of certain people were locked well away so that he could make those discoveries all over again, with fresh eyes.

He had tasks and goals in his life. Plans. He was in the midst of opening up his practice again, his business cards had just come in. He was keeping an eye out for a secretary. Despite his wishes to not advertise - it was entirely too tacky - the City had seen fit to place a small ad in the paper for him. At least there weren't commercials on television, and he'd only seen the ad once, so hopefully it wasn't going to be a regular occurrence. The ad itself was as tasteful as it could be. Plain text, no images. Then there was also the production Erik was planning. As well as his training of Arya.

The doctor moved around the city easily, thanks to the knowledge of the boy on how it worked. He found himself looking for certain people now and again. He would have liked to see the girl, River Tam, for himself. The youth had assured him she was gone before he'd died, though. And Lestat, that vampire, Hannibal wished to meet him, as well.

There was one person that he wished to see more than any of the others, though. One face he hoped that he would encounter again. Clarice Starling. Hannibal found his thoughts roaming to her again and again. He didn't want to seek her out, that was too easy. He'd already sent her a watch, she knew that she could be found. What he wanted was another chance encounter. A second run in with her out in the wild. He wanted to see that look of surprise on her face when they both reached for the same apple, or when she glanced up at a restaurant to see him sitting across the room.

Another face appeared before him in the crowd as he walked, one that distracted him entirely from his former focus. Now Clarice could wait. This one...

Hannibal moved through the people like a ghost, jostling nobody, not even letting his suit lightly brush the arm of another, swiftly yet gracefully moving his feet until he found himself face to face with the subject of his brief hunt.

"Well, hello, Will."

There were things that Mel had explored and then experimented with that she knew she had to tell Pam about. Her agreement with Pam and Eric had been that she could continue to live, and continue to be among them, as long as they didn't find her to be any real threat. As long as she kept herself in check and they felt like she wasn't going to be a danger to them.

Mel had known instinctively that this meant that they might not like the idea of her being able to stop kinetic energy as she had with Logan. Her other risk was that she knew now that she could easily heal a bullet wound and wanted to know if she could heal more. She didn't know if Logan would be willing to go exactly as far as she wanted to go with it, and she couldn't ask Pam. She didn't want to reveal anything until she knew everything.

There was the kinetic energy, there was the healing, and there was that blast of energy that she had let go of. That was really something.

Her mind was reeling over the implications of her powers as she walked. She wasn't paying much attention to her surroundings, so when she felt the presence of the undead, Mel found herself a bit startled. The signature was familiar, though, and she relaxed.

"John?" She said it softly, knowing that he could likely hear it clear as day.

After mulling it over, Bruce decided that it was time to reach out to Liv about the completion of the project he was working on for her. The final test was needed to ensure the endeavor was successful. He hoped it had been, and that it brought some measure of comfort and peace to her. He couldn't cure her ailment, it was unique like his own, but that didn't mean they couldn't suppress it for at least some length of time to give her a normal-ish sort of life.

The chemistry had been complex. Bruce had never touched a drug before that and the process of synthesizing something and manufacturing it from scratch had been exhausting in itself. Long, grueling hours spent in the lab, perfecting each component. His little trash receptacle next to his desk had been full of small, crumpled balls of paper too often for him to recall what it looked like empty. Many nights he had collapsed at his desk from exhaustion, or somehow managed to find the comfort of the sagging, brown couch without knowing how he had ended up there.

Bruce had made himself eat, made himself shower and change clothes, but once engrossed in a project those appearances of him outside of the lab was rare and infrequent at best.

Not that anyone had been keeping tabs on his whereabouts, and Jarvis had always chimed in to remind him to nourish himself. That was always an annoying comfort. Maybe someone had been keeping up with him after all.

But now it was complete. Had been for a few days and Bruce had finally gotten himself cleaned up. After talking to Tony, and having a beer or two with his best friend, Bruce knew the time had come to see Liv.

He hoped it would be with good news.

In his pocket Bruce carried a small, metal tin that once had held mints, in which the small tabs of the formula were being kept. Outside of her apartment building, standing on he sidewalk, the scientist pulled out his cell phone, opened a new text box and sent Liv a small message to see if she was home:

Hey Liv, it's Bruce. Sorry to bother you. Didn't know if you were home. I'm outside in front of the building. Have something for you if you have a minute.

He debated on sending more, but he didn't. Instead, Bruce sent the message and waited for a response back.

"Do you need some help?" Piotr was smiling as he jogged up to the older couple who were looking at a rather large piano, a moving truck, and a broken ramp. He wondered why they didn't have somebody doing this professionally, but he was too polite to ask. They looked frustrated and tired.

"Oh, if you've got some friends that can assist, or a ramp..." The woman said, surprised.

"It just broke." The man followed it up. "Piece of crap. They said that it was brand new, obviously they lied. And they're not open today or something, at least they're not answering the phone."

"I am sorry for your troubles." Piotr was still smiling, knowing that he needed neither ramp nor friends. He noted that the man was holding his arm curiously. "Did you hurt yourself?"

"I don't know how serious it is." The man shook his head. "But yes, I did. Something with the shoulder."

"We should take care of that before dealing with the piano..." Piotr started.

"Oh, no. We can't just leave it here. It's too valuable." The woman interjected. "We're selling it to the opera house, it's an antique. What if it gets stolen? Or what if somebody takes the truck? Vandalism? Anything could happen to it here. Dinosaurs might run over it."

"Da." Piotr made a face, dejected. He knew quite well that dinosaurs might happen. He'd seen them. He wasn't sure what to do.

Jono had scoured the entire city several times over looking for her. It seemed cruel to give him something and then take it away like that, but apparently, that's what had happened. Maybe he'd been foolish to think he could have anything like her in his life. Something to make him happy like she had.

Their time together had been painfully short, and Jono wasn't sure that he could bring himself to be glad that they'd had any time at all. Laura had been the only one to understand what it was like, to feel like he had. Isolated and alone, they'd found one another and built a friendship, and it had become something more.

After his unsuccessful search, Jono had holed up in the apartment that the damnedable place had provided for him. Refusing to come out. If he didn't have Laura, there was nothing for him out there in that place.

Of course, fate would see to it that he needed to leave. After so many days of being plucked at, one of his guitar strings snapped. Jono waited for the City to throw him another one, or repair the instrument itself, but it did not. Frustrated, lonely, heartbroken, Jono set out and found a music store. He'd brought the guitar not wanting to leave it behind. At the store, Jono threw down for a whole set of new strings, and a backup. He also threw down for a tuner and a mini amp. All the money in his wallet was gone when he left the store, yet he knew it would be full again later.


His errand done, Jono wandered until he found a bridge overlooking water. There was a small patch of grass nearby and a bench. He plopped himself down there and set up the guitar and amp. The music that came from it was melancholy at best, discordant and spontaneous.

Since removing her cast, Arya had spent much of her time making her leg strong again. Some of it could be mistaken as a child playing--running around the grounds of Erik's estate and chasing after birds, or standing on her toes as long as she could. She also spent time sneaking out, which wasn't as hard as she had initially thought now that her leg was better. The City was large and strange, and she was hardly given a second look. She walked and watched and listened while she was out, and when she returned, rumpled and smelling of the burning fuel of the cars, nobody said anything.

When she dreamed at night, she saw the City in another way: sometimes low to the ground, sometimes high up, sometimes with the taste of blood in her mouth. But there were shadows almost as dark as those of Westeros, and lights almost as bright as the day, and sometimes in the day she passed places that she had seen as she slept.

She had food and shelter and a bed and clean clothes. There were no Lannisters or Freys. She could almost let her guard down.

The resurrection of his star pianist had driven Erik forward toward an entirely new goal that had crystallized as he listened to Hannibal playing. The opera he'd planned would have to wait. The fall season would be delayed, but only, perhaps, by a month.

He'd disappeared for a full week into the sanctuary of his lake home, as fire within him took hold. He eschewed the paler parts of life - sleeping, eating - and turned his full attention instead to the forms and shapes of his music. His fingers bled; he let them. Nothing was more important than the music.

And when he finally took a full breath again, hands thin and shaking with weakness and grand magnitude, he found more satisfaction in looking at the sheaves of filled staff paper than he had felt in a very long time.

It was not an opera. But Magdelene's voice would give it the scope and grandeur that opera engendered. It was not a full orchestration. But Hannibal's playing was worth more than sections of his magnificent orchestra. And there were yet strings, crying softly through Hannibal's notes.

It was Ignite. A blaze of longing and loss and love, a fireburst of gasping, all-consuming passion, designed to overtake the senses and bathe them in heat. It would be heard. He would bring it to the City Opera, and it would live in the hearts of others, cling to the insides of their skulls, fill their lungs with moaning.

Erik dropped his body briefly into the chilled water of the lake, washing off a week's worth of sweat and blood and toil. He dressed slowly, steadying his hands when he needed to. His clothing fit more loosely than before, but he drew himself up to his full stature all the same, tucked the fire against his side gently, and started up the flights of stairs to the Opera House. There were moments of blackness that had nothing to do with the absence of light. But he made it up.

His assistant had been waiting. Wordless at all the right times, the faithful man called Erik's towncar and followed quietly beside Erik to the door of the car. There was only one moment on the stairs down that Michael felt the need to take Erik's elbow. Briefly. Erik could not muster anger at the boy. Shadows of tall trees passed across the tinted window of his car, throwing muted hypnotic zebra stripe sunlight into the cabin with him. When he lifted his head again, the manor waited for him.

He climbed the stairs, and entered his home. His legs were unsteady, so he waited at the door, one slight shoulder subtly leaning against the wall. He kept his back as straight as he could, refusing the demands of his body for a few more minutes until he could make it to his own chamber.

( Every single night the same arrangement. I go out and fight the fight. )

Megan sat out front of the cottage, a backpack stuffed with camping equipment on the ground next to her and a sleeping bag rolled up and tied on top. She and Peter had discussed this trip: a camping trip for just the two of them. With their powers and her 'porting, there shouldn't be any problems. But she was still nervous.

They'd been dating for a while now, but still. What if the trip was a disaster? What if she did or said something really stupid? What if there was some sort of horrible reality-warping world-smashing incident and they found themselves trapped in alternate dimensions? You really couldn't be too careful.

She tapped her feet as she waited. She'd been convinced to leave her music player at home and enjoy nature while she was out in nature.

"Great Scott!" Peggy breathed, watching the large, avian-like thing flying about as if it were perfectly normal. What the creature was, the agent wasn't quite sure. She had never seen anything like it where she was from and she had witnessed a good many things. Her time was still considered ancient, vintage even. If she heard "retro" or "vintage" one more time, though, someone was going to get a fist to the jaw. She couldn't stand what was now labelled as "throwback". What in the bloody hell was that?

That was a good question in itself.

Shopping no longer seemed an important task.

Peggy had left her apartment with the hope that she would be out, free from the burden of her nice but strange room mate (who did bring a goat to live with them) and to clear her mind of the stress sharing brought. She wouldn't kick Siggy out, she couldn't do that to the woman. But it was a tad bit frustrating having to deal with a lifestyle much more primitive than her own. The agent did her best to be understanding and patient, but there was always a line and Siggy was slowly approaching it.

The agent stepped up next to a skinny, awkward looking man whom seemed about her own age and she placed a hand on his forearm. "Do you see that?" Peggy inquired, her British accent ringing out stronger than ever in the question itself.

She had to make sure she wasn't going absolutely bonkers. Being a nut wasn't an attractive feature though she had an idea that Steve would support her despite being locked in the looney bin for seeing strange birds. "Fascinating," Peggy breathed next. Her eyes finally pulled from the bird-thing to look over at the man she had asked the question of. The fact that he might be as clueless as she was did cross her mind, but she still had to be sure.

Ever since she saw the man with the healing glow Harley had been obsessed. She couldn't shake the feeling of what a miracle such a power was. All of her, every fiber of her being wanted to have that power, the ability to heal and the ability to save. She had long since given up her morals and standards for ethical practice, but that didn't mean she couldn't start over, right? With Eddie gone the world was too quiet now. No Joker, no Scarecrow, no Riddler. Nobody that would know her on the deeper levels of what she could be and what she had been.

It was time to make new friends.

So she sought out the nurse that had healed James. The search wasn't too difficult, she had a location to start in. The City Hospital. It was there Harleen used her Doctor credentials to slip into areas reserved only for employees. She browsed through rooms, patient areas, staff areas. Each door she opened held potential but none of them held the man she was looking for.

"Like findin' a needle in a haystack," Harley breathed. Maybe she could try calling for him. Wasn't that what had happened the first time anyway to get him to appear?

Wouldn't hurt to try would it?

She found an empty, dark patient room and once the door was closed behind herself Harley moved to the center of the area and grinned. "Peter!" She called. Her voice wasn't too loud, not wanting to give away her position, but loud enough to be heard by anyone that might be listening. Her mind, too, reached out anxiously. Would he hear her?

"Peter!" She called again.

Contrary to what she might have thought, Bruce Wayne hadn't gone to work that day. Instead, he'd spent the entire day quietly organizing for the evening. There was much to do, and it had to be done in secrecy -- a feat not easily accomplished with an accomplished mistress of stealth in the manor.

But by 6 p.m., the northwest corner of the roof was set up to his specifications. He'd already moved an intimate dining table up, along with a bedroom suite, some days ago when Selina had been out. The final touches - the important things - were complete. Rose petals. He toed at the thick carpet of them, then glanced to the high walls around the roof. The wind would take some of them, but Alfred knew to replace them just before he and Selina brought up dinner.

He checked his pocket a third time for his grandmother's ring, then headed downstairs. He was supposed to be driving back in from the City at this time, and his decoy driver had just made it to the garage. With a nod, he snatched the keys from the air as they were tossed, pulled on the suit jacket he'd left to change into, and headed back in to find Selina.

The warehouse was as well-fitted as it could be, defensively and offensively. That had been step 1. But now he and Bane needed information -- more of it, that is, than what could be found on newspapers left littering the sidewalk in this mostly-deserted side of town. Refuse told much about a city - even living refuse that clumped in dirty piles in the alleyways - but there was only so much information that could be extracted from half-gone junkies. With distaste, the Cleric dropped the latest wellspring and dusted his gloves off gingerly.

This wasn't working.

It was a risk, but one that needed taking. Bane was too conspicuous to do the job well; it fell to Cleric Brandt, First Class. Clothes were the first hurdle, quickly overcome by a little quiet street intervention. Wearing another man's clothing, then, he took the first car he found into the City proper and ditched it on the edge of a long line of houses a few streets down from a busy part of town.

And then he began walking. A fresh newspaper was easy to pluck off a nearby outdoor table. He tucked it under his arm and kept walking until he got around the corner, then propped his arm against the side of the nearest building and began to read.

It was a nice day. The days since she'd arrived had all been nice, which Clarice had only noticed in a vague sort of way. She had been busy reading old files, familiarizing herself with the problems of the City, learning the ins and outs of the new technology, and then putting together a file on Hannibal Lecter in her spare time. He--they?--had been very quiet in her time here, but she would not be caught off guard.

The fourth time the booking officer found her asleep on a couch in the break room, he had ordered her out. "Nothing's going on, Starling," he said. "The City won't fall apart if you take an afternoon off."

Clarice, unsure of that, had protested but found herself shooed outside. There she'd noticed the weather and decided to walk in the City that she'd been studying. She found herself sitting on a bench in the park, people-watching, leaning back with her arms crossed. The vast majority of those that she saw were the people she now recognized as City-born natives, the ones with a certain something missing. They were almost uniformly pleasant but somehow emotionally flattened. Like pigeons, she thought, watching them walk by. Someone of a certain mindset could easily see them as less than human, animal-like, a subhuman flock to be hunted.

The thought chilled her.

Selina knew about the library and what it held. She had been there many times in hopes of finding something that would catch her interest. She had expected a book, something tantalizing and something she wouldn't want to give up. What she found was much different.

There was a row of displays almost as if the Library was some sort of museum. Behind glass hung things from an assortment of lives. Every life held an item or items meaningful to their existence. Even she had one of her own. Selina pressed her hands against the display gingerly and peered in at what the City had claimed of her life.

She noted the rest of what was there, a typical inventory of what was there and then she left.

That was long ago, it seemed. Before she had given up the mask and the suit. Before she had been sure of the direction that her life was going.

The one thing that had held her interest more than anything in that library was the wedding dress that was hanging there on display. Someone might as well have put a sign up that proclaimed the thing was free to the public because to her it was. To her it was better used in other ways.

Selina stood in the dark before the lit display. In her hand she held the wedding invitation dated so long ago. Her lips pulled in to a smirk. She didn't know who Shelly Webster was, but she felt pity for the girl. Who would marry a man like Eric Draven? Selina didn't know. Maybe he was a good con artist, maybe he was convincing. She didn't see it.

The invitation fell from her fingertips and fluttered to the floor.

Her eyes tilted upward and then the dress was hers. She took it from the display and left nothing to note whom had come to claim it. There were better uses for a dress like that than hanging here all by itself. Selina wondered when it was last visited. That didn't matter. It was hers now and she would stake claim to it. She wanted it, and he didn't deserve it. He had no use for it. She would find a purpose for it.

Whisking the garment away, Selina laughed. Nobody would ever know. Nobody. She was great at what she did and she was not afraid anymore of retribution. Eric wouldn't dare touch her. It was almost too easy.

Almost.

Tony stared at the plethora of screens projected around him like a dome, mouth hanging open slightly as he stared at the recordings of life around the City. It made no sense. It still didn't. The movements of the locals and architecture, the inexplicable patterns and how they didn't seem to affect daily life in the least bit. It made no sense, and Tony hated it.

If he couldn't even understand how the City operated, how could he hope to grasp it's intent for its kidnap-pees, and how could Tony work out how to prevent losing anybody again?

The inventor felt nauseous from the problem, and dizzy from his position. He was lying, stretched out across the front seat of the hot rod that he worked on eternally as a meditation, the doors open and his head handing off the edge of the driver's seat. The blood had rushed to his head from the length of time he'd stayed this way, but he was determined not to move until he'd seen something. There had to be a clue somewhere.

"Heithrún, stop that!" Siggy tugged at the rope around the she-goat's neck. The goat, a white-and-brown creature with long ears, bleated and dug her hooves into the dirt by the City park.

Siggy frowned, irritated. It had taken her so long to find someone to sell her a live goat, and she then had to wait until one of the females was bred. This one was newly pregnant, which meant that eventually she would have milk, real milk, and a kid goat for eventual eating. Peggy would likely protest, but the girl would agree once Heithrún was producing milk that it was for the best.

If she could only get the stubborn beast to the building and then up to the rooftop.

The text she'd gotten had been very straightforward. It had come out of nowhere from a number that had not - she knew for a fact - been in the stupid phone before the text had come. Having the little device made her a bit angry. She had nobody to call. Nobody to communicate with. Her days were filled with herself and her routine.

Michonne didn't know if she felt happy that the thing was getting use, or annoyed for being interrupted.

Ms. Michonne. You are expected at the Wayne Enterprises building at 4:00pm on August 18th. If you cannot make the appointment, please call 555-25535 to reschedule.

You are to meet Zoe Washburne, Security, to discuss a possible position within Wayne Enterprises.


Who the fuck was this Zoe Washburne? Why the hell would Michonne want to meet her? Unfortunately, curiosity and boredom worked together to persuade the former lawyer to go. She readied herself as she'd done every day, and headed out. It didn't take her long to find the place, as the City seemed to make her way for her. She discovered quickly that it hadn't been a misplaced text or some kind of joke, because the front desk handed her a visitor's badge and sent her right up.

Michonne's eyes wandered the walls and structure and offices as she walked, wondering why somebody who worked in a building like this would want her to work for them. She sought out the office she'd been directed to, and stood in front of the door a moment. Was she really going to do this? She was. Michonne knocked.

She had remained secluded for too long, she thought. It had been some time since she'd last seen the face of another. Diaval was fine company, of course, but the Fairy Queen was realizing that she had need of company. That she actually missed people. She thought many times of Evey Hammond, Ben Flynn, and Eric Draven. She thought more of Logan.

Diaval knew that she needed to get out of the forest and explore, but the witch was stubborn. It took him a very long time to convince her to make an exit, and then she refused to let him go find Logan or Selina, he knew it was because she didn't want to be entirely alone for even that long.

Finally, Maleficent decided upon the ring that she'd made for her friend. It was supposed to be used in emergency situations, she'd told him that if she ever needed him, she would let him know through the ring. She needed him now, but it wasn't dire. Diaval reminded her that it was her magic, and she could bend it to her will. Eventually she relented.

Her eyes closed, she concentrated. Through the ring she sent a warm sensation. A request, instead of a demand. A whisper instead of a scream. Maleficent hoped that Logan would understand she was not in trouble, not that kind.

Then she waited.

The City was creepy.

Rose hadn't gone straight to her apartment to find what she wanted to move to Matt's. She started making a list of the things she wanted to take, yes, but instead of heading back to Agreeable Apartments, she got on a bus and took it to the edge of the City closest to the island. Then, she caught a taxi that took her over the bridge to the island itself.

And then she walked.

It felt like a far longer walk than she remembered, getting to the TARDIS. The ship was dark and still, and it felt terrible seeing her like this. She almost didn't do what she had come to do, her heart too heavy to easily say goodbye.

Because that's why she'd come. To put her past behind her. To move on. That was what he wanted her to do, after all. She was so angry with him, angry with the Doctor, for giving up on her when she'd been willing to do whatever it took to find him and to stay.

Only, he hadn't wanted her. Her chin lifted, as she remembered the new face and the same exact eyes... He hadn't wanted her. He'd moved on, perhaps years ago. She was the only one in that relationship now, if one could ever call it that.

Rose turned the key in the lock. "Hey," she whispered into the silent room. "I came to say goodbye. There's... There's this man. And he... Well, he's not The Doctor, but he's good and he's kind, and he loves me. I love him, too. And I can't keep holding on to the Doctor when he's let go of me a long time ago. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

She set the key on the floor, then stepped back through the doors.

And she ran all the way across the bridge.

It was a little more than an hour later than she arrived back at her apartment. She'd found that the City had boxed up all the things she'd mumbled to herself that she wanted to take. Yes, the City was creepy. But at least it'd done something nice for her. She squared her shoulders, gathered up her things, and went to her new home. She went to Matt's.

And that's what she found herself doing sometime after 5pm - pushing open the door to his apartment. Now theirs.