Mixed Muses: The Morning After

[thefirststark]

He wakes up.  In a strange bed.

It takes a moment to remember where he is.  And who he's with.

As he gets his bearings, he smiles to himself and looks over at Alisa.

Comments

[thefirststark.livejournal.com]

"Came with the airplane," he says nonchalantly. And tries not to smile too broadly about either the company or the plane he left at home.

[invisi_cipher]

Alisa can't not giggle at that. "Really?" she asks. "You know I still haven't been on a plane."

[thefirststark.livejournal.com]

"You are overdue. Flying is wonderful. Though you would just be a passenger.

"And no, I had to buy this. But every pilot worth his salt owns one."

[invisi_cipher]

She smiles. "I don't mind just being along for the ride, Howard," she says lightly, reaching up to drag her fingertips over the shoulder of the bomber jacket.

"Maybe if I go with you I can be."

[thefirststark.livejournal.com]

"We'd have to visit my Long Island proving grounds, then. That's where I keep my planes. Three of them, though one is always an experimental model."

They pass through the main bar, rats scurrying back and forth.

[invisi_cipher]

"Where does your door open?" she asks, glancing down at the rats and doing her best not to step on their tails with her sneakers.

[thefirststark.livejournal.com]

"Usually at my Manhattan apartment. Sometimes at my office, or even out at my California compound. And oddly, never at my house in LA." He has no idea why? "Where does yours come from?"

[invisi_cipher]

"It moves," she says. "It's almost always in the mansion, but it moves from my bedroom door to the solarium, or the door out to the garden sometimes. Once from the kitchen."

She wonders if she's ever mentioned that the school is actually housed in Charles Xavier's house. Which is a mansion. And a very large one at that. "It's only opened once for me away from there. At a movie theater."

[thefirststark.livejournal.com]

"I hope it wasn't a good movie. Or did you just get back to it later?" Once in a while, time slides ahead a bit for him. When it's least convenient.

"The mansion is where the school is?"

The door to the lake and the woods awaits.

[invisi_cipher]

"I wasn't there to see the movie," she says, stepping around the obstacles between them and the door with relative ease. "It was hot and I thought I'd go inside."

She smiles at the notion of it, though. Even for her the idea of taking refuge in a dark, cool theater is kind of funny--if only because movies have been made about people who do what she does to one extent or another. "And yes, the mansion is the school. It used to be the Professor's house...1407 Graymalkin Lane, Salem Center, New York." Her tone is playful as she recites. It's not an address she ever thought she'd live at.

[thefirststark.livejournal.com]

"I assume it's pretty quiet up that way?" The suburbs outside NYC tend to be, well, dull. "My Long Island compound is surrounded by potato farms."

It's nippy out, but sunny.

[invisi_cipher]

"Oh, it's boring," she says, half in agreement. "But it's far enough out of the way so people don't much bother us."

Alisa turns her face towards the sun for a moment, smiling through the wind. "How did you know you wanted to build airplanes and fly?"

[thefirststark.livejournal.com]

"It comes from my grandfather. He saw one of the first planes ever built in flight, and decided that was the future. Stark Industries was once Stark Aviation.

"He taught me everything." Up to a point, of course.

[invisi_cipher]

"He sounds interesting."

[thefirststark.livejournal.com]

"It depends on who you ask. I think he was amazing. My father thinks his father was a dreamer who squandered his opportunity to amount to something in the automotive industry." He looks at the sky. It would be a wonderful day for flying.

[invisi_cipher]

She chuckles. "My dad never talked much about his parents, but I remember my mom's father always wanted me to be a librarian."

She can't imagine herself doing that. "I wonder what he'd think of me now."

[thefirststark.livejournal.com]

"I guess it depends on whether he could accept you for you." The way Howard imagines he has. "And whether he really wanted you to be a librarian that badly."

[invisi_cipher]

"I don't know if he would have. I haven't seen him in a while."

[thefirststark.livejournal.com]

"He's still alive?"

[invisi_cipher]

"My grandfather? Oh, yeah, he is," she nods. "I haven't seen my grandparents since I was little. Maybe six or seven."

She looks over at Howard and considers. "I don't think they'd like that I'm basically good at spying. It's...what my abilities let me do," Alisa says, not the most comfortable with the subject, but far from embarrassed about it.

[thefirststark.livejournal.com]

"Just like mine let me help win the war. I am not sure how proud I am of some of the things I helped create. But it was necessary, and I was good at it." And he is still at it, after all.

[invisi_cipher]

"I haven't really done anything much with it, other than listening to people."

She stops near one of the trees that's tall enough to have a good view of the lake, and points up to a thick branch. "Think you can climb up to there?"

[thefirststark.livejournal.com]

That's a bit of a topic change. But he can deal with that.

"I haven't climbed a tree in a long time. I did do some mountain climbing before the war, though." He studies the tree before trying.

[invisi_cipher]

Just because she's not actively embarrassed by it doesn't mean she wants to really talk about it. Alisa grins as she jumps up to swing from one of the lower branches, pulling herself up and gaining a somewhat steady footing, hand pressed against the bark.

[thefirststark.livejournal.com]

He follows. And finds that he is perhaps a bit out of shape. Ironic that a man affiliated with the army has no time for exercise.