[MW] Pennsylvania

[re_mybrains]

It's a pleasant March afternoon in downtown Harrisburg, Pennsylvania -- sunny, partly cloudy.

In the courtyard of Pennsylvania Apartments, the bang of the front door slamming is still echoing when it opens again.

Two dozen zombies, in varying states of decay, are staggering towards it.

A human lighting generator, a superhero, a geek, and two regular schmoes are coming out the door to face them.

Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets.

Comments

[re_mybrains]

"Don't--" he starts, and breaks off.

"Fuck, Hawkgirl, please don't talk me out of this."

He's back to not making eye contact, blinking at a spot in the air about two inches from her shoulder.

[accipiterpuella.livejournal.com]

The lack of eye contact is noticed. It makes it worse, because he's somehow not fully present.

"No, I'm sorry, I'm not going to be quiet while you conveniently act out a death wish. I'm not that woman. Are you trying to commit suicide?"

[re_mybrains]

"No!"

That gets him looking at her.

"Look, if I wanted to get horribly devoured by zombies I wouldn't have brought you guys here in the first place. I survived here five, six months -- I can do it again."

[accipiterpuella.livejournal.com]

With that, she grabs his hand and slowly (and irreversibly) tugs him backwards a few feet, further away from the madding crowd, so that she can get out of the line of sight of everyone but Tom.

Words usually come easily for Kendra. But there's something undefinably horrible about just abandoning him on a dying world, something that she can't quite articulate while he's seemingly in panicked about-to-bolt-pell-mell-into-certain-death mode. She has to try to calm him down first.

Then maybe he'll actually listen.

Right now, the only thing she can do is silently lift up the gold of her mask, so that she can finally let him look at her eyes.

[re_mybrains]

Really, as Tom's hysterical panics go, this only rates about a 3.

"Look, I have t--"

The mask comes off.

He shuts up.

[accipiterpuella.livejournal.com]

She's staring right back at him.

Kendra's been rather impressed with Tom's tendency to not panic in a crisis. It's after the crisis that worries her.

She runs a hand through her short brown hair, tousling it slightly, a gesture that betrays more ease than immediate self-consciousness.

"Do I have helmet hair?"

[re_mybrains]

"Nope, you're good."

A deep breath. "This is a big deal."

Whether he means his own situation or the mask coming off is up to her.

[accipiterpuella.livejournal.com]

She nods silently, a very delicate and slight motion.

"It is."

She means both.

[re_mybrains]

He moves to scrub his free hand over his face, stops, and wipes it on his jeans. Damn zombie goop.

"I have to do this," he mutters tiredly. "I really have to do this, okay?"

[accipiterpuella.livejournal.com]

Kendra, who takes the kind of care packing her daily supplies that most people take for planning for natural disaster up to and including probably having an earthquake solar powered blanket somewhere on her person, also carries plenty of Sani-Dex goo-annihilating alcohol wipes. Because, as Tom mentioned, zombie goo should not stay lurking on live people who intend to stay that way.

This is why takes two packets from one of her canvas belt pouches and offers them to him, helpfully tearing off the tops first.

She takes a third to wipe off her hands with.

"What do you have to do?"

Her voice is even, calm, and unhurried.

[re_mybrains]

Tom blinks, derailed, and accepts them, laying the cricket bat on the ground.

"Come back here. Get to New York."

[accipiterpuella.livejournal.com]

Fortunately the packets tear easily. She opens hers, taking out the wet cloth and beginning to slowly wipe the blood spatter off of her forearms, above her gauntlets.

"Why New York? Why?"

She still hasn't decided whether or not to just grab him and yank him back to Milliways.

This is hard.

[re_mybrains]

"Best chance that the survivors there are organized. There or DC, I guess. Maybe there are even people somewhere who have contact outside the country . . ."

He scrubs off his hands and distractedly crumples the wipes into his pockets as he finishes.

"Because this needs to get done."

[accipiterpuella.livejournal.com]

"Give me those. You don't want to pull them out accidentally and blow your nose into one of them. You'll get infected."

Her voice is still very, very even.

She holds out her hand for the pocketed cloths. Her eyes move upwards again to meet his, steady and brown and insistent.

"So this is a rescue thing."

[re_mybrains]

"I don't even know, Hawkgirl, it's -- I can't just leave this place to die, I can't abandon it. It's my home."

Belatedly but obediently, he pulls out the cloths and hands them to her.

[accipiterpuella.livejournal.com]

"I know what it's like to look at a world fighting for its life. I know what it is to look at a world like that and feel the responsibility for it settle on your shoulders."

She knows what it's like to look at a dying world, too, and have to leave it behind with every atom of her being fighting and screaming not to do just that.

The cloths are taken gently from his fingers.

"I'll burn these as soon as I get back. If I go back."

Or maybe she'll take them back home to the JLA in one of those specimen bags she carries and give them to Pieter Cross to analyze.

[re_mybrains]

He frowns. "If? Oh, no. Like hell you're staying here."

Superheroine or not, he's not keeping one person here who doesn't have to be here.

[accipiterpuella.livejournal.com]

"Like you can tell me what to do?"

But she's smiling. There's something knowing and even a bit sad underneath, but the smile is very genuine and very wide.

Because she understands.

"Think of how much easier it'd be with the ability to recon from the air. Why are you so determined to do this alone?"

[re_mybrains]

He makes a frustrated noise, running both hands through his hair. "No. Look. No one deserves this shithole. And I know how that sounds with me wanting to come back here, but I've got to do this, and you don't. You have your own world to be saving."

He shakes his head. "I am not going to risk anyone long-term out here, least of all you."

[accipiterpuella.livejournal.com]

"What would you do if I stayed anyway? Followed you around? Because thus far, you haven't given me a good enough reason not to. Most worlds need saving, Tom. It's not like I don't already world hop as it is."

She's pushing a little. Because she needs to know if this is Tom's stand, if his need to do this alone being the thing that he'll measure everything that comes afterwards against. Men make themselves or break themselves that way, crashing against themselves and either coming out whole or coming out as something else.

[re_mybrains]

A quirked, shaky smile. "Yell at you, probably."

[accipiterpuella.livejournal.com]

The smile widens.

"Yeah, I bet you would."

She looks down for a few moments, scrunching up their antiseptic smelling cloths, then unsnapping one of her pouches to push them inside. The smell of alcohol is fading.

It's hard for Kendra to get physically cold wearing Nth metal, but she rubs her arms, feeling the threat of goosebumps.

"So what's your plan? How are you going to do this?"

[re_mybrains]

"Follow the highways, travel by day -- same way I got here from Detroit. Just with more ammunition this time."

He glances around and adds, jokingly, "And with more staying out of the middle of big cities if I can help it."

[accipiterpuella.livejournal.com]

"You need to be striking a balance between staying out of sight but not going too remote. Stick to places where you have high visibility in all directions, preferably flat. You need to find gasoline and a vehicle. A big vehicle, then drive like hell. Because trying to skulk your way to New York City might get you dead. I'd say find a garbage truck, but that might be too cliché."

Bossy? Kendra? What?

[re_mybrains]

Blinking, he looks back at her -- and he keeps looking at her for a long moment. Just looking.

Shit.

Finally, he nods. "I'll try, anyway. Roads might not be real passable."