It's for the best...kinda
Aug. 24th, 2021 11:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
noteasytobepinkWho: Clarice, Bill, the FF (which may mean Fantastic Five in this world)
When: A week after sliding into the space station.
What: Bedside vigil and getting Bill up to snuff.
There was no FF tower yet, no glowing paragon of tech in the center of New York, exactly, but there WAS the joint business venture tower and labs that the FF had before they'd oome up to space. This world was a little off kilter from the standard story, and she thought that was actually for the best. In this world there was no Victor von Doom, no, there was a Victoria. A Reed Richards. A Samuel and Jonathan Storm. And a Benjamina Grim. Oh, and the thing that apparently kept the people together? Reed, Sam, and Victoria were a solid, long term trio and Johnny had a hell of a crush on the down to earth engineer, Ben. Said woman was amused by the crush but not at all swayed, but still, it knit them together better than other FF teams she'd run into.
Nothing like finding out that a Reed Richards COULD be mentally balanced out instead of nearly insane himself most days huh? And Victoria had the funds of a small nations to invest in business, so there was the Joint Ventures building. Where they were currently...living? Recuperating.
Space had been...hard.
Granted, Ben had threatened both she and Bill with a nice, hefty wrench the moment they'd docked with the space station, and it had taken some fast babble to keep people from trying to space anyone...
...luckily if anyone could follow cross-dimensional theory it was Doom and Richards in any reality. As far as that was concerned, well, cake walk mission.
As far as cosmic rays were concerned though, well...they hadn't told the group WHAT was going to happen, just that they were there to keep something from going very wrong. Couldn't have the team scrubbing the mission and leaving again until it was safer, much as that was the SENSIBLE option. Sometimes having to have things happen a specific way kinda sucked majorly. Bill had really shone then honestly, he and Ben were thick as thieves within an hour or two, talking this and that, and even if Bill wasn't a super science engineer, well, he and Grim were a lot alike in humor and being GOOD people.
She'd only had to growl at the woman once even, though to be fair the cheerful pickup line had probably been as much to tweak Johnny's tail as it was to test the waters.
And like the lodestone Grim was, well, where her trust went, the rest followed.
They had a bay set with extra shielding before the FF arrived, layered, welded, and hopefully up to snuff. And space walk practice. Hell, she almost intended to stuff Bill in a closet come time so he DIDN'T decide he was the one going out on the research arm to snag the wayward FF...
...almost, the desire was there, but she couldn't protect him to the point of smothering could she? They were a team now, like it or not, and he wouldn't thank her for babying him. Besides, they were kind of on even footing out there, she couldn't portal in and risk explosive decompression of the station, and not enough spikes she could hide in her gloves AND get punched through said gloves in a emergency, to direct port anyone. It was going to be all reflex and hope out there...
...she hated relying on something so tenuous honestly.
Despite herself she actually liked the group itself. Some things were normal, Johnny was a flirt, Sue...no Sam, could distract Reed with a look, so could Victoria...and Ben was cheerful. She liked their chances, but it made her paranoid. She knew the Timebroker wouldn't send them on a pointless, baby mission, but that was oddly what it felt like. Too easy.
Too likeable.
TOO SMALL A TIME FRAME THE MOMENT SHE SENSED INCOMING.
"REED I DON'T LIKE THESE READINGS!" Victoria growled as an alarm went off. "The station can't handle....what boosted it? Was there a nova?"
"I can't tell not enough data!" The man yelled back, and Clarice straightened from her comfortable lean on a wall. Here was the crunch point.
"Bay four!" she snapped. "NOW!" They had to have SOME exposure, she couldn't just port all their asses, so telling them to run...
"That shuttle computer gets slagged we can't get home," Benjamina growled softly after the order. Hell.
"Buddy system?" Bill offered wryly, glancing at Clarice.
She was gong to kill that man yes.
"Dual tether is better in rough situations," Grim agreed, heading for the airlock and suits.
"Be careful," Clarice couldn't help it?
Couldn't help it at all.
And damn it all Ben and Bill were both heroes. They both tried to curl around the other when the wave front edge hit. They BOTH caught exposure. They both stopped breathing until Clarice could snarl and haul them in for the others to start CPR.
Breathing and coughing they both did...neither woke up though. She had to get order restored, and Johnny to the shuttle after the rays passed, to get it cycling up for a return trip after the hard shutdown the two had given the thing. Precious hours wasted while the FF tried to figure things out and gather data and she just wanted Bill in a hospital.
But this worked too. Because he wasn't dying, no, none of them were. The rays hadn't done much to her that she could tell, just really topped off that internal reserve that had been low or empty since the fight with Grant, but Reed started stretching, Victoria could see magi and influence it, Sam went mostly invis, and Johnny burst into flame on the way down. How not?
And Bill slept.
And slept.
AND SLEPT.
This was day six after rays and she was in the chair by his bed in the living quarters, growling whenever Reed poked his head in to see if he could just take one more sample just in case...
...yeah.
She sucked at waiting.
When: A week after sliding into the space station.
What: Bedside vigil and getting Bill up to snuff.
There was no FF tower yet, no glowing paragon of tech in the center of New York, exactly, but there WAS the joint business venture tower and labs that the FF had before they'd oome up to space. This world was a little off kilter from the standard story, and she thought that was actually for the best. In this world there was no Victor von Doom, no, there was a Victoria. A Reed Richards. A Samuel and Jonathan Storm. And a Benjamina Grim. Oh, and the thing that apparently kept the people together? Reed, Sam, and Victoria were a solid, long term trio and Johnny had a hell of a crush on the down to earth engineer, Ben. Said woman was amused by the crush but not at all swayed, but still, it knit them together better than other FF teams she'd run into.
Nothing like finding out that a Reed Richards COULD be mentally balanced out instead of nearly insane himself most days huh? And Victoria had the funds of a small nations to invest in business, so there was the Joint Ventures building. Where they were currently...living? Recuperating.
Space had been...hard.
Granted, Ben had threatened both she and Bill with a nice, hefty wrench the moment they'd docked with the space station, and it had taken some fast babble to keep people from trying to space anyone...
...luckily if anyone could follow cross-dimensional theory it was Doom and Richards in any reality. As far as that was concerned, well, cake walk mission.
As far as cosmic rays were concerned though, well...they hadn't told the group WHAT was going to happen, just that they were there to keep something from going very wrong. Couldn't have the team scrubbing the mission and leaving again until it was safer, much as that was the SENSIBLE option. Sometimes having to have things happen a specific way kinda sucked majorly. Bill had really shone then honestly, he and Ben were thick as thieves within an hour or two, talking this and that, and even if Bill wasn't a super science engineer, well, he and Grim were a lot alike in humor and being GOOD people.
She'd only had to growl at the woman once even, though to be fair the cheerful pickup line had probably been as much to tweak Johnny's tail as it was to test the waters.
And like the lodestone Grim was, well, where her trust went, the rest followed.
They had a bay set with extra shielding before the FF arrived, layered, welded, and hopefully up to snuff. And space walk practice. Hell, she almost intended to stuff Bill in a closet come time so he DIDN'T decide he was the one going out on the research arm to snag the wayward FF...
...almost, the desire was there, but she couldn't protect him to the point of smothering could she? They were a team now, like it or not, and he wouldn't thank her for babying him. Besides, they were kind of on even footing out there, she couldn't portal in and risk explosive decompression of the station, and not enough spikes she could hide in her gloves AND get punched through said gloves in a emergency, to direct port anyone. It was going to be all reflex and hope out there...
...she hated relying on something so tenuous honestly.
Despite herself she actually liked the group itself. Some things were normal, Johnny was a flirt, Sue...no Sam, could distract Reed with a look, so could Victoria...and Ben was cheerful. She liked their chances, but it made her paranoid. She knew the Timebroker wouldn't send them on a pointless, baby mission, but that was oddly what it felt like. Too easy.
Too likeable.
TOO SMALL A TIME FRAME THE MOMENT SHE SENSED INCOMING.
"REED I DON'T LIKE THESE READINGS!" Victoria growled as an alarm went off. "The station can't handle....what boosted it? Was there a nova?"
"I can't tell not enough data!" The man yelled back, and Clarice straightened from her comfortable lean on a wall. Here was the crunch point.
"Bay four!" she snapped. "NOW!" They had to have SOME exposure, she couldn't just port all their asses, so telling them to run...
"That shuttle computer gets slagged we can't get home," Benjamina growled softly after the order. Hell.
"Buddy system?" Bill offered wryly, glancing at Clarice.
She was gong to kill that man yes.
"Dual tether is better in rough situations," Grim agreed, heading for the airlock and suits.
"Be careful," Clarice couldn't help it?
Couldn't help it at all.
And damn it all Ben and Bill were both heroes. They both tried to curl around the other when the wave front edge hit. They BOTH caught exposure. They both stopped breathing until Clarice could snarl and haul them in for the others to start CPR.
Breathing and coughing they both did...neither woke up though. She had to get order restored, and Johnny to the shuttle after the rays passed, to get it cycling up for a return trip after the hard shutdown the two had given the thing. Precious hours wasted while the FF tried to figure things out and gather data and she just wanted Bill in a hospital.
But this worked too. Because he wasn't dying, no, none of them were. The rays hadn't done much to her that she could tell, just really topped off that internal reserve that had been low or empty since the fight with Grant, but Reed started stretching, Victoria could see magi and influence it, Sam went mostly invis, and Johnny burst into flame on the way down. How not?
And Bill slept.
And slept.
AND SLEPT.
This was day six after rays and she was in the chair by his bed in the living quarters, growling whenever Reed poked his head in to see if he could just take one more sample just in case...
...yeah.
She sucked at waiting.
