November 20, 2015:
Justice League members get together to catch up. Captain America shows up.
JL:A Lakehouse - Metropolis
Lavish without being ostentatious. Expertly decorated without losing the basics of comfort. This is the Lakehouse that 'belongs' to the JL:A (though Kate Bishop's name is on the paperwork).
Once through the doors, the foyer opens up to a large foyer, decorated in deep rich hues. Stepping through, the living area is comfortably appointed, each chair, each couch with its own set of throw pillows. Coffee tables and end tables dot the room, each with its own work of art, and coasters for drinks. Windows overlook the pathway to the slip to the lake that lies beyond.
A professional kitchen is attached to a grand dining area, the great glass and shining metal table able to seat 20 without difficulty.
Upstairs, four bedroom suites can be found, each with their own 'theme', each with their own balconies. Past the suites, five large master bedrooms, each with their own grand window and walk in closet are available.
On the roof, a helipad.
Characters
![class="image1"](http://cmbeta.wdfiles.com/local--resized-images//class="image1"/medium.jpg)
NPCs: None.
Mentions:
Plot:
Mood Music: None.
Fade In…
The lake house. It's a comfortable place, where people can safely relax and enjoy some of the more normal aspects of life. Like post-rescue BBQ's. It's a little too chilly for manning the grill outside, but that's why Kate ordered catering in from one of the best places in the city. There are aluminum servers spread out over the kitchen counter, along with paper plates and utensils, and there's classic music - Sinatra and the like - playing softly over the speaker system. Drinks, of course, are in the fridge.
Kate's dressed comfortably in leggings and a tunic sweater, loading up a plate with pork and beans and sipping from a bottle of cider. "Food's ready!" she calls out to the rest of the house.
From afar, there's a telltale rumbling of a motorcycle engine, louder and louder as it approaches from the highway. The sound cuts just as it gets its closest, and before too long there's a ring at the door. Steve, literally in the area, has decided to take Kate up on her offer and to stop by. He's not familiar with the 'rescue' operation or any of the particulars, but it's been a while since he's seen her and he's eager to say hello.
Steve steps back from the doorway and looks out over the grounds. It's been an awfully long time since he's been here, and he's not sure if that's good or bad. A lot has changed since those days—that's probably the only certainty.
The orange-haired paramedic from the local fire department has been snoozing in the lounge area. It'd normally be kind of rude to do that kind of thing, but she just got off duty and it's been rough since the rescue, with little 'down-time' between getting members of the JL patched up and her normal work. Today she's clad in a sensible black hoodie and jeans, her duty work-boots on the floor as her socked feet are propped up on a coffee table. She may even have been snoring a bit, which is something new since the rescue mission.
She hasn't heard the rumbling of the motorcycle, dead to the world as she is. Kate's words haven't even registered to her… yet.
Kate pauses at the doorbell, popping a piece of cornbread into her mouth before setting her plate down to head for the door. "Hey Cam, food's up," she calls into the living room as she passes by. "Probably want to hit it before Thor does." When she opens the door to find Cap on the other side, she breaks into a grin, jumping out to catch him in a hug. "Hey, Steve!" she exclaims. "Perfect timing. We've got BBQ. You've got time, right?"
Steve takes Kate into his arms and steps back for good measure, eager to keep his balance and his pride. "It's good to see you, Kate." When offered something to eat, Steve reasons that it's a long way back to New York tonight, and it'd be easier with a full stomach.
"Guess it would be almost unAmerican to say no."
The taller woman blinks and stirs a bit as she hears her name and sits up, stretching before rubbing her eyes. "Th.. thanks, Kate." There's that slow 'getting up from a nap' sort of motion as she makes her way to the food, taking a plate cautiously and loading it up with things she knows that Thor would probably not be so keen on, like potatoes, corn, hot dogs… maybe some potato salad, even. All the sorts of things that leave the red meat for the God of Thunder, at least for the moment.
No, she's not vegetarian. Calories are calories, and peace in the family and all. She does grab one thin strip steak and sneaks it into the pile of food, though.
She glances up at Steve's arrival and gives him a quiet nod before sitting down. She's seen things, but she has a bit more of a 'haunted' look to her these days…
"And I'd be sad," Kate assures Steve with a broad grin. "And you wouldn't want that. Hey guys, Steve came to visit!" she calls back to the house, leading the way back into the kitchen. For as hard as she works in the Watchtower or the Hall of Justice or in the field, these are the times when Kate seems most content. Times when the team is together, and off the clock.
"Not kidding, guys, if you haven't seen Thor eat yet, I promise you want to get your dibs in before he shows up," she adds a little louder up the stairs as she passes by.
"Yeah, that's what I meant. Un-American," Steve says with a flat look before a widening grin. He follows behind her, taking just a half moment to look at familiar walls as his boots click and clack on the hardwood flooring. In his hand—a six pack he'd planned on donating.
"Who's all here?" he asks Kate from behind, making his way towards the kitchen.
A distant keening crescendos into a distinct roar, announcing the approach of a Javelin to those familiar with such craft. The aircraft does a flyby of the lakehouse, banking and turning in a wide loop as it decelerates enough to touch gently down on its VTOL thrusters. A few seconds later, the entry ramp descends to the helipad surface and Sam Wilson strides down it — followed closely by a hawk that swoops off into the sky to hunt.
"I gotta say, the whole AI autopilot running through the post-flight checklist for you? I don't think I ever fully appreciated it until I had pulled pork waiting for me after I land." He quickly makes his way into the building and down the stairs, heading for the eating area.
The arrival of the Javelin has Cameron tensing a bit as she watches the exits, Steve, and Kate, as if trying to make some sort of tactical adjustment. When there's the sounds of landing and no hurried bootsteps or harsh shouting voices her shoulders relax a little bit, and she stands up.
"Hey… Falcon." God, that sounded lame.
"Steve's here, Kate's doing door-duty and food-wrangling, uh… get what you want before Mister Odinson shows up?"
"Cam's finishing up a nap," Kate answers Steve. "Sam's- whoops, Sam's on his way in," she grins as the javelin lands. "I've got invites out to Captains Marvel and Britain, too. Though they might be busy, they're a little more independent. You know how these things go, everyone's got things they do, lives to live. But we're rebuilding," she adds, a note of pride in her voice. "This whole thing was hard and ugly, but if it gave us the kick in the pants to rebuild, I can work with it. How about you? How go things?"
Steve nods to Cameron and up at Sam as the latter comes down the stairs. He's nodding a lot of everywhere up until Kate mentions rebuilding. Hard and ugly, and kicks to the pants.
"Hmm?" he asks, having no idea what she's talking about.
"Hi there, Columbia. Hey Cap! Hey Kate!" Sam greets the group with a broad grin. His earnest excitement about all things superheroic eases any corniness in the use of the codenames. Even showing up in snug-fitting white and red to what is technically a downtime function sits fairly easily on him. "Where are we eating?"
"We had some of ours go MIA during that obelisk thing here in Met. Had to extract."
Cameron's tone kind of goes flat and not-quite-military crisp, but the 'I-don't-know-how-much-you-know-or-are-supposed-to-know-but-don't-want-to-be-rude' sort of tone. She winces as that comes out flat. "Sorry, it's been…"
She pokes at her food quietly.
"Yeah, so, see." Kate passes a plate to Sam, then goes back to get her own. "We sort of- I mean. It's not that it was entirely a secret, it's just that we were trying not to let the world at large know, and I was kind of busy, because, see, Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl and another hero got abducted, so we had to go get them back. It took…" She looks away, rubbing a hand at the back of her neck. "A few weeks. But everyone's back now!" she adds quickly, looking back with a much less certain smile.
Steve raises his eyebrow, perplexed, at Kate. Before long it turns into a peer. "I see," he says, but after Kate's rush to explain things away, he doesn't really seem eager to let the issue go. "Katherine?" he asks politely as he fiddles with some brisket on his plate. "What are you not telling me?"
"Hell of a fight, too, from what I hear," Sam says, a little too preoccupied to pick up on the thread of Steve's question. He mostly sounds sympathetic with the other Leaguers, but there's something else, too. A note of envy, perhaps?
He takes the plate from Kate and starts to load up on mac and cheese. "So, what was it like? The other world, I mean. Basically like Earth, or really alien? Lots of animal life? Was the gravity normal? How about the sky — weird numbers of moons or anything?" Not envy, then: curiosity. By the time he's finished with his breathless questions, he has a messy pork sandwich, collard greens, and is already fishing through the cooler for a beer.
"Picture Gotham as a world, then multiply by a factor of ten and put HYDRA in charge." The tone is a bit snappy to Sam and then the orange-haired paramedic winces. "Sorry, Sam. Biosphere was trashed, gravity about normal, no clouds in the sky, death and suffering everywhere." There's a bit of a pause as she stares at her plate of food and her stomach growls in hunger… and she pushes the plate to the side while having a 'thousand-yard' stare.
"Nothing. I mean. Not the details. Parts of this story aren't mine to tell," Kate clarifies for Steve, shaking her head. "They were there for longer than they should have been. And I feel a little responsible for that, since I was the one who was left in charge." She leans over to push Cam's plate back in front of her, giving the paramedic a look. "Punishing myself won't make it any better, though."
Steve takes a long look at Kate as he takes a swig from his beer. He sets it back down, sliding it on its axis for a long moment. When the time comes, he responds with nothing, content to pick at his brisket.
"Yikes. Sorry, Cam." Falcon looks uneasy at the woman's sharp and then taciturn responses to his wave of questions. "I didn't mean to —" He trails off and pokes at his greens with a plastic fork. "Well, there's got to be a resistance movement or something. No evil empire's complete without one. Maybe we just have to find them, figure out what kind of assistance we can offer."
In the distance, a rumble of 'thunder' across the clear evening skies. Then a golden streak aimed like an arrow across the skyline, coming in for a landing. But there's no engine noise. No rumble. Just a golden-shrouded glowing form, red boots alighting on the grass not far from the landed javelin. A touch to her ear, and the helmet flares and dissolves to reveal Carol Danvers, in her Captain Marvel costume, marching across the grass to the back door, sliding open a nice glass door and stepping into the living room, before sliding it closed. "Hi, Sorry I'm late." Carol comments, nodding to folks as she heads for the smells of that food. The trip as nasty, no doubt. But it had to be done, and it's over now. All of them. Apparently she'll worry about specific greetings once she has food; maybe Kate called ahead with warnings of incoming Thor?
Cameron takes the plate with the sort of guilty look a child gives their parent when called on 'not being hungry' and slowly begins to devour the food on her plate with practiced precision. She glances over at Falcon and shakes her head. "Sorry, Sam. Shouldn't.. it's not…"
And then she catches the glint of the arriving Carol and jumps to her feet, widening her stance and preparing for— "Oh. Hey."
She wants to slap Carol upside the back of the head for the stunt she pulled on the extraction, but settles for pointing an index finger at Marvel, waggling it a bit.
"You. No more fake-dying, okay? You had me worried sick!"
There's an effort at a forced smile and relaxed shoulders.
"I've got a feeling whatever is going on on that planet is the definition of not our fight, Sam," Kate shakes her head. "Besides, we need some time to heal and rebuild. To get back to being who we're meant to be. Which is going to be a whole different fight these days, with this…DEO group taking over from SHIELD. I'm still not sure what the game is there, but we're going to need to be on our best behavior for a bit until we get a better idea. Hey, Marvel," she leans back to wave toward the door as the other woman arrives. "It's good, you beat the Asgardian contingent and I ordered plenty."
Steve gives Carol a wave as she approaches; but goes back to sitting quietly. He seems to focus persistently on his food, up until the point that it's all gone. From there, he finishes off the last swigs of his beer. When Cameron blurts out bits about fake dying, his eyebrow goes up, but he says nothing.
Once her plate is piled - Carol is anything but shy about food, and thus stuff smells great! - Captain Marvel nods to those she knows around the house. Most of them she knows, at least in passing, though some better than others. She sees Steve, and her nod there is longer, a tad deeper. But she moves on.
"Wasn't fake. I did what I had to do to cover your backsides, and make damned sure that ship wasn't around to be used against us." Carol offers Cameron. "I got lucky. Energy is kinda my thing." So she siphoned off enough from the omega beams that blasted that ship to scrap to supercharge herself, fly out of the fireball, and make it to the boom tube taking the evac ship back to Watchtower.
Response given, Carol moves towards a table to put her food down and eat, but turns to greet Cameron one on one after she has. "I didn't mean to worry anyone. But we were in a hot LZ making extraction for all we were worth. We didn't have time for pretty. But you did a damned good job with the wounded." She offers her hand to the paramedic.
"Hey there, Carol," Sam says, offering the woman nothing more than a casual salute as she enters the room. Cheeseburger seeming to go down in flames, only to burst back into the fight at the last second, taking everybody by surprise? Sounds like a Tuesday.
Turning back the the table, he gives Cameron an apologetic look. "Hey, I'm sorry. That sort of thing can be hard to leave behind. I wasn't thinking. If you want to talk about it, just let me know."
Kate's comments about SHIELD get a quick shrug and a smile. "Well, I promise not to drop off the grid until whoever's in charge now has settled down, then. I think that counts for best behavior, where I'm concerned."
"Apologies accepted, Carol, Sam. Been kind of… Even knowing what we were getting into it was a bit rough. Place like that can… make you almost forget what you're fighting for. Almost happened to Diana. We… it." There's a bit of a grimace.
Cameron takes the offered hand quietly and then nods. No crusher grip, just a firm grip. Like her mother said, let them know you by the strength and character of your handshake.
"We need to train together better. Actual training. I mean… Hmmm. Hey, Steve? Are you in the middle of any projects right now?"
Cameron has a COOL idea!
Kate nudges a fresh beer toward Steve, a tacit apology for not having more to say about what went down. "If you get a chance to talk to Diana, I think she'd appreciate it," she offers quietly before going back to her own food. "As far as the DEO goes, as long as we just do what we're supposed to do, we'll be good. We're heroes. We do good work. People know that, and as long as we keep doing it, we'll be fine."
"A little here and there, Cameron. I stay busy, as per usual," Cap responds with a bit of a weary sigh.
"Kate," Steve says with a genuine smile. "I've got a long drive ahead of me and I'd better head out. Thank you for the food, it was great. It was great seeing you guys again. I'll give Diana a call when I can."
Steve wipes his mouth with his napkin a final time to make sure that no barbecue sauce has missed his earlier attempts. The white paper flips down upon the plate and Steve pulls to his feet, eager to dispose of the dishes. "Carol. Sam. Cameron. Take care."
"Sam. Good to see you. Steve." Carol offers. "Drive safe." That said, she moves back to the table and sits, ready to eat. "Spending a week and a half there was no picnic. But we do what we have to do. The prep work and recon was worth it, I'd say." Carol hasn't had a chance to talk with the Amazon, but she strusts the others to deal with things there. She doesn't have to do everything, or see everyone. She's not discussing the DEO, either. There's just something about their name that sets her hackles on edge; better to say nothing.
"See you, Steve," Sam says with a wave and a broad smile. "Don't be a stranger, okay?"
Having made his farewell, he turns back to their hostess and raises his eyebrows. "Wow, Kate. You really have no experience at all with being under new management. Especially new military management." He raises his beer toward here. "Here's to optimism, I suppose."
"Hold on! Kate, do I get a stipend from the JL or something like that? Something in the bylaws or something crazy? I don't have any restrictions on how I use that, right? I'd like to hire a consultant for 'team building exercises'!" She gives Steve a hopeful look. "A consultant that prizes their privacy and wants to remain out of the public eye, even! Is it worth looking into?"
As Steve starts to head out Cameron does give a polite wave and nod. We need to get you back here. We miss you. Kate's been awesome, but we need your help…
"Who says we're under management?" Kate smirks back at Sam, shrugging and taking another drink. "We may have to coordinate with them, but we're not taking orders. You guys may be military. I'm a spoiled rich kid. We suck at taking orders." Or at least she's a spoiled rich kid when it suits her to pretend to be one. "Good to see you again, Steve," she adds as the captain takes his leave, smile faint. "You know you're welcome any time."
Steve chuckles a bit at Cameron, but says nothing as he exits out the front door. There's a wave as well before he hits the cold air, the motorcycle seat, and then the road.
"Spoiled rich kid, my arse, girl." Carol comments, with a smirk. "So. How is everyone doing, settling back in?" She starts cutting things up, preparing her food and eating bits of it. "Good choice on the caterers, Kate."
"Good point," Sam concedes to Kate with a smirk. "Between you and Stark, sometimes it seems like I only take orders from rebellious rich kids. Maybe it's my way of bucking authority: 'I was just taking orders from someone terrible at taking orders!'"
He cocks his head to one side and considers this for a few seconds, then shakes his head. "Nah. My way of bucking orders is to just" — he puts both hands together at the base of the thumb, pantomiming wings, and flaps them — "fly away." He drops the Falcon shadow puppet and points at Cameron and Carol. "You two know what I'm talking about."
Cameron waits for a few moments for some sort of response from Kate, then shrugs and glances at the others. "Running from a bully just makes them stronger in the long run. Found doing EXACTLY what I'm told is more educational." She goes and loads another plate up. "We're going to have to do this a couple more times, I think Asgard-duty has our Thunder God busy, and Cap'n Brit'n, too."
"Sorry, Cam," Kate says quietly once Steve's left. "But I think he's got his own thing going on. He knows we're here. Everyone figures things out at their own pace." She drinks again, shaking her head to Carol with a smirk. "Don't go spreading that around. Spoiled rich kid. Nothing to worry about here. Totally someone the meatheads at the DEO can just take advantage of when they try to cause trouble. You know, on the one hand, I should probably be offended that's still working, but on the other hand, it's still working, so who am I to complain?"
"Best way to deal with a commander who needs to learn his place is to just haul off and deck his arse, if he can't take suggestions." Carol opines, simply enough. Obviously, Carol will make suggestions first. But her right cross will be coming quickly enough if needed. "Sorry, Kate. I'd spell you if I could." But she can't. It won't quite work.
"With new bosses on the way, sounds like there's plenty of ass-guard duty available around here, too," Sam points out, clearly enjoying his pun almost as much as the cheesy macaroni. (Almost.) "Anyway, you should see me sic my sir-yes-sir on 'em. I can look like a very good little airman when I need to." He laughs at Carol's suggestion, then nods at her. "Maybe we can play good cape, bad cape with 'em."
The orange-haired woman plows into the next plate of food with more mechanical precision as she listens to the discussion and then nods to Kate and shakes her head at Carol. "Now you're sounding like my Mom. That's why I never told her about any fights I got into at school." She blinks a few times at Sam's comment. "Meant Thor, doofus." She… sticks her tongue out at the other paramed. "How about we just keep on keeping on, and let them sort themselves out, and if they turn out to be dicks, we deal with 'em?"
"Pretty much the idea," Kate points to Cameron. "We do what we do, we tell them the official things they need to know, and we pretty much leave it at that. We don't work for them, any more than we used to work for SHIELD. But I'm not going into this looking to start a fight. The things we do have too much of an effect on other people like us."
"Whatever it takes." Carol ansewrs, softly, as she finishes her plate and sits back, sipping her own beer. "We do what we have to do. Like we always have. And when that becomes a problem, we deal with that." She gestures her glass towards Sam, then Cameron, and then Kate. "So. What needs doing now, anyway? Or are we doing OK on downtime for now?"
At Cam's teasing, Sam laughs and puts up his hands. "What, Thor can't do boardroom politics? 'Verily, mine powerpoint is fulleth of actionables! By the cross-departmental synergies of Odin, who done usedeth the last of mine toner?'" He considers this performance and nods. "Yeah. He'd be a natural."
At the more serious discussion of their behavior with the new leadership, he shrugs and waggles one hand. "Look, you guys know I'm a people person. I can get along fine. I guess I'm just kind of a 'hope for the best, prepare for the worst' type, too."
Carol's question catches his attention, and he pauses with his beer bottle halfway to his lips. "Well, there is that whole thing with the anti-mutant groups trying to put together a bunch of killer robots. Because that always works out so well."
"Whososayeth mine hammer is not the judge of man gets extra hours!" Cameron considers that as she busts out laughing. It's kind of clumsy but she shakes her head and eats some more.
"To secure peace, prepare for war?" She offers that. She can't remember where she heard that, but her Mom quotes it all the time from something. "Wait… what? Oh jeezus Christ, not this crap again." There's a bit of head-hanging. "Can't people just, I dunno, have a beer and chill out or something?"
"Well now I just want to appoint Thor as the official person of dealing with them," Kate snickers at the others, grin flashing. "Tell him it's good practice for being king. Although if Asgard has somehow escaped the evil that is bureaucracy, then maybe we should go visit there for a little bit and figure out how they're doing it. The mutant haters are an issue, though," she nods to Sam. "They're people, just like us. So we help where we can. But we also need some time to recover. To help our teammates recover."
"Hate makes people blind and stupid." Carol observes, pretty cooly. "Only benefit is, robots means weapons-free punching. No need to hold back. The more severe the smashing, the better."
Sam lifts his own bottle at Cam and tells her, "Some people can have a beer and chill out. Others are a little more intense." He nods at Kate. "I mean, I don't think Thor, for example, mixes the two. Love to see him at an office Christmas party."
Settling back with a quick swig, he continues: "I think that we can do both if we tag team it. I'm still fresh; I can figure out what's going on with these bots. I bet I know a few people I can call in to help, too. The rest of you rest and recover, and if this situation is as bad as the X-Men think it's going to be, you'll be in good shape for bot smashing when the time comes."
Cameron's response is further nodding as she runs over and grabs a huge heaping plate of Muh-muh-muh-MEAATTTTT since the God of Thunder doesn't appear to be showing up, and tearing into it with her knife and fork like some sort of crazed beast as her stomach growls once more. Halfway through she looks up and stops. "Sorry, hungry. Smash bots, Yes, let's do that please check it out."
And then she's delving once more
"They're not actually all robots," Kate points out as she eats. "Not to ruin anyone's dreams of completely destroying things. Also, robots are not bad people by definition." It's possible she's still dealing with some robot issues. Maybe. "But I think we can definitely spare the resources, especially since we've added some new members," she adds with a welcoming smile for Captain Marvel.