meadowlark | @william.maximoff

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@william.maximoff

Hey. There's a lot of old information on this, and that's great. Really. But it's also a l o t for newcomers to try and sift through. There was some talk of a guide, which would be awesome? Even if it's just a basic rundown of world stuff that isn't the wiki-ish pages of the internet that just assume we know crap, it'd be helpful.

Back home, I was on a team called the Young Avengers. We went on a multiverse jumping spree for several months, so this isn't my first rodeo. It is the first place I've been to where we woke up with our abilities locked away and given new ones. Super weird btw, I'm not fond of it. As someone who already went through the whole "traumatic event waking up your mutant powers" thing, I'm not up for round two. But it means I've got some history with jumping around to different places.

I've got a place outside the safe house already, but it's not really a space meant for more than one or MAYBE two people, and we've got three. So if anyone has ideas for an easy job to get into for new arrivals, let me know? Disclaimer: I've never had an actual job before. And I didn't have much of an idea of what to set up an ID with since, I really don't have any experience doing workforce things.

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since july. but it feels like way longer

[ maybe that's because every other week is a frenetic disaster on par with the kinds of emergencies shield normally dealt with. she rarely gets a chance to breathe. ]

my friends got here before i did, though, so i got a bit of a head start on getting acclimated
kat's intro guide should hopefully be done soon, but in the meantime, feel free to ask if you have any questions

I'v met Fitz already.

( and had the shield talk. )

Can I ask what other friends you've got here?

then you're halfway there.
fitz is a good person to know.

[ daisy johnson, captain of the leo fitz fan club ]

he and i worked together back home, his old college friend kat is our other roommate. everyone else, i met here, but i can give you some recommendations if you need an expert in something.

( he hasn't figured out what's public knowledge and what isn't yet, so-- )

Fitz and I talked about his work a bit. I'm familiar with it from back home. Same with you.
But I'll definitely keep that in mind, if I do need anything.

[ hard brakes, full stop. ]

before i repeat the "daisy outs herself to the young avengers" fuck up story, can you tell me what exactly you know about our work? or me, for that matter?

[ she knows she exists, in the young avengers universe. but she doesn't know the specifics, because she and kate never got around to discussing them. they sort of veered off-topic in talking about potato masher hawkeye vs hot guy hawkeye. ]

I don't mind talking about it, but I'm not sure how secure this line is and if you're wanting to keep it from getting out, maybe we should talk off network?

i can do that.

[ so far, the privacy settings on the network have held up as well as can be expected -- but she's not going to turn down the opportunity to stay off the radar, either. ]

if you're free, my evening's pretty clear.

Mine too, since I'm still unemployed.
So whenever you want to, I'm not picky.

i'll pencil you in, then.

[ she considers, for a brief moment, inviting him over to casa shield for a chat. but she doesn't know what he knows yet (or who's home, for that matter), and after she'd screwed bobbi's cover once with strange, she's a little hesitant to do it again.

so instead she sends a calendar invite (very microsoft office 2013) for later that evening. the location pin leads to a small diner a few blocks down, one that's open relatively late and offers cheap fare to anyone in need of a quick bite to eat. it's out of the way enough that she and fitz have popped in for dinner, and when they've managed to snag a back table, have a full chat without looking over their shoulder during the meal. it seems like a good enough place to talk shop. ]

if you beat me there, the booth in the back corner under the weird cat picture's a good spot.

Got it.
I don't have credits yet though.

( he doesn't beat her there. in fact, billy runs a few minutes late. it's a new city. new layout. he's used to new york--and the bustling streets semi reminds him of there. if new york were a cyberpunk place full of hovercars and holograms. but he's not. super late, so it's better than nothing. )

Hey, sorry. I--took a few wrong turns? I don't know how I did that, with GPS and all.

[ lucky for billy, daisy is capable of both entertaining herself — thank you, neural network and your endless supply of questionable journalism — and supplying a meal to a new face who might need one. thank you, stem career, and thank you three-way split rent. ]

You're good, no worries. Come on into my office.

[ whatever clickbait article she'd been skimming is whisked away with an errant flick of her wrist, vr desktop closed with another blink; she sits back in the booth to get a better look at the person settling across from her. ]

So. [ you know, just launching in. normal conversation stuff. ] Sorry this is our meet-cute, by the way. I normally try to do a round when new people come by, but our glowcube overlords apparently had other plans for me that weekend.

[ like... blinking out of existence. something. she still doesn't totally get what happened. ]

( for someone claiming to be a hero, he's--not very well-built. billy isn't scrawny, but he isn't built either. his hair is a bit of a mess, brown strands curling and sticking every which way but there's not enough of it to get in his way just yet. there are choppy bits where whoever the hell shaved his head didn't get too well.

brows bunch tight when he sits down across from her, notices the differences in appearances. not enough he couldn't recognize her, but enough to pause for thought. )

Don't worry about it. I wasn't really up for conversation when I first got here anyway.

( he was busy figuring out how to deal with his brother from a different dimension. handling loki's stuff, trying not to have an anxiety attack--all that fun stuff. )

So, disclaimer: the multiverse is vast and everything is different everywhere, and I'm going to try not to assume anything of you based off of my universe's you because that's not really fair to you.

I'm familiar with the theory. [ can't be friends with fitzsimmons and not have a basic understanding of the multiverse. especially not after months here, where it seems to come up in conversation like clockwork every other week with each new set of arrivals. ] But okay. I get your point.

[ daisy's seen the butterfly effect. if she hadn't joined rising tide, or if her parents had fought back against shield when she was a baby, or any other small choice or change or decision adjusted — who knows what the ripple effect might be. she'd still be daisy, but would she recognize herself? ]

But you know of me, and you've met Fitz, and you've talked about SHIELD. So do you want to give me the bullet points, at least? Pros and cons? [ a beat ] Everyone from your universe is like the hotter version of ours, I think. Still true for me?

[ does she care? not totally. but irreverent humor might take the edge off what could be an uncomfortable conversation. ]

Okay, so. SHIELD isn't my area of expertise, I'm a lot more focused on the Avengers as far as keeping track of everything goes. ( settling himself down a little, with a hand raising to shove fingers through his hair. ) I'm not the person to ask about your hotness level, but you seem attractive enough to me. I'm gay, but like. The you from where I'm from is probably on the same level as you.

( ie, you're both pretty, but he wouldn't really be able to point at one and go "she's hotter". ) You're younger, I think. The Daisy Johnson I know is an inhuman who goes by Quake, was leader of SHIELD for a bit. She was born to a sex worker and adopted as a kid by another family.

We worked together once, kind of? There were a lot of Avengers and everyone else helping, ( anyway. ) basically Norman Osborn destroyed Asgard, it was horrible, we stopped him but not before a lot of bad things happened.

Inhuman, Quake — that part checks out. [ she thinks it's probably pretty safe to assume her powers are similar, if not identical, in that universe. interesting. she hadn't been sure if the terrigen would still release the same abilities to a different version of herself. ] But I told Coulson back home that I wasn't cut out to be leadership material, so I guess your Daisy's the comic book version I meant.

[ THE IRONY IS THAT IT'S TRUE but that's neither here nor there. ]

And I think my mom's more sexy genocidal maniac than sex worker, but — [ she shrugs ] Gotta make a living somehow.

[ it's sort of a weird thing to think about. she can imagine the multiverse theory just fine in the abstract, but other versions of herself... it's a little harder to wrap her mind around. ]

I don't really go by Quake here, though. I mean, I can't quake anything. [ thanks, glowcube. ] So Daisy's fine. Or Johnson, I guess, if you're Hafid and perpetually grouchy.

I don't think I'll really go by Wiccan here either, so I get it. Daisy it is. ( he'd complain about hafid but honestly: considering how he publicly lashed out, how daisy is acting about him--he doubts having to break up stupid fights is really anything new around these parts.

there's no point in going into the rest of what he can remember of daisy's origins, either; they've connected enough dots, he's sure. some things in the universe don't really change while others do, and honestly--he doesn't have a lot of experience interacting with heroes from different timelines. mostly, they just. jumped. searched around for signs of tommy and left. )

I'm Billy. ( obviously, his name is right up there on the network. come on billy. ) Maximoff isn't my real last name either but--my brother's here and it's a little complicated.

Really?

[ weird family drama, okay, she gets that much. she's got her own name change saga she could delve into, but it's not the sort of thing anybody really wants to hear. ]

Are you going by Maximoff here, then, officially? [ so she knows what to call him if someone else brings it up. ] Or just a fun party story?

[ she'd ask more, but the waitstaff interrupts just long enough to come by and take their order. a veggie burger and fries for daisy, plus a half-and-half milkshake that's promised to be much bigger than any one person needs in one sitting; her head tips towards billy after a beat. ]

Just add it to my tab, okay. It's fine. You can spot me next time.

( he hasn't adjusted to the menus here, didn't even look this one over so billy just--orders the same thing, replaces the half and half shake with a full on vanilla one. it's a vanilla kind of day. )

Thanks--will do, once I get a job nailed down here.

( the one thing billy kaplan thought he wouldn't need for a while. thanks a lot, multiverse. )

My mom's Wanda Maximoff, kind of. I mean she is, but I died and was reborn to the Kaplans? So, uh. Usually I just go by Billy Kaplan, but my twin brother by Wanda is also here and he's used to things being different--he's from a different side of the multiverse. So I figured we could meet halfway and go by Maximoff legally.

[ the name rings a bell — because shield, because cliff notes versions of avengers problems, because daisy reads the internet — but that's about all it does. she knows who wanda maximoff is, but not much about her beyond the shield file basics. finding out she had a child in multiple avenues of the multiverse seems almost anticlimactic today. ]

I don't know that that's totally "meeting halfway", [ but she looks more bemused than antagonistic about it ] But I get it. Names are complicated. I've had plenty.

[ some she chose, some that chose her, some she didn't ask for. making a conscious decision to change it means something, and she'll respect that for billy. if he wants to go by maximoff here out of family loyalty, then that's what he'll be. ]

Sorry about the dying part, though.

( not out of loyalty to wanda, even if he does love her. out of wanting to try and help bridge the weird multiversal gap between himself and tommy. it's better than using magnus as tommy does. billy isn't super anti-magneto right now. he's trying(ish) and billy can. acknowledge that a little. but he doesn't want to carry around his name either. )

I haven't had many, they're--not that complicated for me, honestly. I don't have anything to hide or any reason to try. Especially not here, where it's not like--my family's around. ( to get hurt. it hasn't happened (yet) but it doesn't mean it's not something billy thinks about. )

And I really don't remember it at all. I was a baby? Uh. Basically, Wanda wished for children with Vision, and obviously that wasn't going to happen naturally. So she used her power to create them, but magic can't create souls. Those were bits of Mephisto's own, which had been split into numerous parts. But Mephisto kind of wanted his soul back so he killed Wanda's babies for it.

[ she nods, if not in understanding then at least out of acknowledgement. names are complicated for her, always have been, but she can appreciate his reasons. (she doesn't come close to wrapping her brain around the concept of magically creating babies and then putting souls in them?? or the babies dying and being reborn? but... the multiverse. sure.) ]

That's a lot.

[ very sage, daisy. how astute. luckily, she's spared from sounding too stupid by the arrival of their food; there's a solid twenty seconds of polite quiet as the waitress divvies out fries and veggie burgers and milkshakes, and then another few as daisy picks up a fry and chews it, considering. pretty good. ]

Very 'plot of a young adult fantasy novel'-y. [ very harry potter-y, what with the splitting up souls and murdering babies. ] I don't think the Wanda in our universe had magic babies. But then again, if she did — I don't think she'd publicize it either.

( there's food but billy immediately goes for his own milkshake. a bad idea probably, but he does what he wants. takes a few sips out of the provided straw before he bothers trying to answer.

is this even real milk here in these trying, futuristic times?? he's not gonna ask. )

Like something out of a comic book, yeah. ( a nod in agreement. ) But considering the Kree and Skrull wars and Kang the Conqueror going back in time to recreate the team that's taken him out time and time again and the huge Civil War over hero rights and everything else--honestly. My origin story wouldn't even rank top twenty origins if we turned all our lives into young adult fantasy novels.

( lol. )

I mean, just think about yours.

Mine? [ she huffs out a quiet laugh in between bites. he has a point. ] I mean, yeah, I guess. Quasi-immortal leader of a secret Inhuman nation, Jekyll and Hyde dad on a rampage, SHIELD baby snatchers... not to mention a grand nearly eighteen years in the foster system? Definitely a set-up for some weird shit.

[ five years ago, she might have been willing to swap it all out for a different, more leave it to beaver-esque existence. but not now. she was pretty happy with who she was now. ]

I don't know about top twenty, though. Depends who else is in the running.

Maybe not top twenty. ( a. uh. semi-lighter topic. ) My boyfriend is the son of Mar-vell and Skrull princess Anelle who was brought to Earth by his mother's friend to protect him from his grandfather and the Kree. So he's part of two warring species who've brought their stuff to Earth a few times, and had a custody battle over him which led to a fair amount of Avengers getting involved.

( that's not including the tragic death of the only mother he's ever known, nor the involvement of the super skrull, or any of that. but. )

Then there's Hawkeye and the Maximoff twins and Tony Stark--I don't think we can compete with a lot of them.

[ the kree sure did like to get their hands into weird shit, didn't they? daisy doesn't really have much to say to that beyond a low whistle of appreciation. plus, there's the whole veggie burger to eat before it gets cold.

eventually, though, she pipes up again, pointing a fry in billy's direction. ]

For the record, I'm not undercover with SHIELD or anything. I'm not advertising — that's more Fitz's gig, really — but if someone wants to know, it's not a secret. People just don't know me as Quake here, so.

[ for obvious reasons. ]

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wiccant - 2019-03-16 22:04 (UTC) - Expand

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