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Mara bit her lip but nodded, turning very red herself as the removal of her shirt left her in jeans and some fairly plain underwear. She very nearly apologized for that - wasn't expecting - might have something nicer somewhere - but quickly decided that there were far better things she could be concentrating on. "Think," she replied, sliding her hands down Ellie's sides and then back up, taking the medic's shirt with her, "that fair's fair. What's the phrase. Show you mine if you show me yours...."
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Mara hummed in approval - at Ellie's enthusiasm and everything else - and came up for air only when she absolutely needed to...and only gave up Ellie's lower lip a couple seconds after that. Even then she backed off as little as she could to breathe, enjoying the heady intimacy of keeping close to Ellie's face. "You know," she quietly noted, shifting position to something at least a little more comfortable than her impromptu pounce. "Can think of better reasons to have to go to sleep exhausted."
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Whatever reaction she'd been expecting or dreading, that apparently wasn't it. The television shut off and Mara finally glanced over at Ellie, blankly blinking at her like she wasn't sure what to do now that her worst fears hadn't been realized. She knew her girlfriend had understood, but there was no fear, or reproach, or veiled disgust. What she'd gotten instead was exactly what she rationally knew was likely but couldn't bring herself to hope for in any of the thousand times she'd run the situation through her head, trying to figure out how to bring it up. It left her feeling like she'd been bracing for a punch that wouldn't - and couldn't - come, and she wasn't sure what to do next. no - scratch that - know what I want to do next Mara carefully carefully set her face, squared her shoulders, and took Ellie's hands...and pulled, digging her heels into the mattress for better leverage, hauling the younger girl up onto the bed and just about pouncing on top of her for one hell of a kiss.
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"Needed me to be smarter," the girl at the back of the bed quietly replied. "Anything with acceptable risks and that didn't open my skull. Smarter and controlled. So that I could build things." brain's not as bad as - should complete the story - deserves that much She took a deep breath, and lights danced behind her eyes again. The screen blacked out for a moment, and then filled with a long list of schematics, pictures, newspaper clippings, and what looked like a ledger full of sold items - some marked 'recovered', more than a few marked 'destroyed', but a lot just left unlabelled. It was a long, long list. "Mostly lethal. Some not. Preferred those projects. Sabotaged some, toward the end...rarely. Wasn't always capable. Still...still a lot on the street. Or unaccounted for. A few simple enough to be made by people without...insane brains. So still in production. That's a shorter list, fortunately." She smiled a little, apprehensive but apparently relieved to have told somebody, even if it did end up blowing in her face. "Dads, huh?"
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calm down - oh god - have to tell her eventually - but what if - trust her - but can't - better now than later - not going to be pleasant - phrase - like a bandaid? She was gradually calming back down, but Mara didn't relax much - less panicked, certainly, especially under Ellie's reassurances, but still tense and...concerned. Apparently concerned more about Ellie than herself as the young engineer carefully watched her for a moment before slumping a little and gesturing weakly at a large TV mounted on the far wall. Lights danced behind her eyes as she told her computer to display her medical files. By the time all the information was loaded and shown she couldn't meet Ellie's gaze anymore, keeping her focus on the images: medical reports describing extreme and generally illegal experiments, treatments on the cutting edge of science, reports filed by empaths on mental molding and reinforcement. And in the center of it all, a brain - her brain, in its clearly mutated glory, uneven here and too dense there, too connected between the hemispheres and containing at least one completely extra lobe, all somehow kept within a normal human skull without starving or collapsing in on itself.
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Mara ducked her head a little, blushing again. "It...was nice. Very nice. If not ideal circumstances. Can think of better reasons to have to sleep exhausted than headache curing and tired mumbling about-" She stopped, completely motionless for seconds as if someone had frozen her in place. When she finally moved again it was slowly, eyes going wide in horror as she scramblined as far back against the headboard as she could and brought up both hands to cover her mouth. "Oh no - didn't - didn't mean to - would have told you eventually but not - didn't -"
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"Much," Mara replied, and she meant it - she even looked better, or at least a lot sharper than she had since Ellie'd arrived. And certainly not like she felt like her brain was trying to claw its way out from behind her eyes. "Would have called you for headache help earlier if I knew it'd get you into bed," she commented, raising an eyebrow. A blush betrayed her deadpan, though, and she brushed a lock of hair back behind an ear. "It...thank you. Shouldn't have had to call you, but...glad I did."
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Some handful of hours later Mara awoke, drifting lazily back to consciousness. Despite the short length of rest she felt remarkably refreshed - not quite as rested as a full night's sleep, of course, but she just felt good. Relaxed. And, for just a moment, confused: in the space between waking and her brain truly getting back on its feet, she glanced over at the dozing form of Ellie and blinked. did we - no - clothed - relieved - disappointed? - right - had a migraine - called for help - very effective She knew she probably ought to feel guilty about taking Ellie away from whatever she'd been doing, and she was certain she'd feel guilty later, but all of that seemed momentarily unimportant next to the attractive girl next to her. In her bed. Under her covers. Very gently pushing herself up to sit with her back against the headboard, Mara pulled her legs up to her chest and watched the medic...and smiled.
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Mara muttered something, but it was completely unintelligible; the warmth, the comfort of her own (fairly high quality) bed, the sleep deprivation, and the sudden release from the grip of her terrible migraine were bad enough, but combined with the singing she was drifting off to sleep before she could bring her stubborn nature to bear. In the engineer's mind the world faded away in layers - the city noise faded, her long litany of concerns got tucked away for later, and even her awareness of her warehouse computer quieted to a low hum in the back of her mind. Everything was just comfort, relaxation, and for the first time in a long time deep, honest sleep.
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Dragonfly blinked, though she didn't slow down in her role as assistant to the more capable remote-operated paragon; still, one of the perks of being able to think more than one thought at once was holding a conversation while your hands did what your hands needed to do. "Lab's power supply should activate automatically if city grid fails. Disregarding sabotage or poor maintenance, anyway. Insisted on it during construction. Only need power supply for high-energy experiments and grid failure, and for both it needs to be reliable and automatic." She moved to wipe some sweat from her forehead before remembering that she couldn't exactly reach it in her hazard suit. "Still. City grid failure would be...bad. Speed would be good."
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Mara made a small noise of protest, but didn't move to stop Ellie from pulling up the covers. "Not that long," she sleepily defended, apparently too stubborn to drift off immediately. "A day. Two, maybe. Had worse. Things that needed building, or head hurting too badly to sleep....s'what you get with artificially mutated brains. I think. Not many other cases for comparison." She yawned again, snuggling in the sheets. "Used to it, when it's not this bad."
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Mara frowned again, and shook her head a little, though she didn't open her eyes. "Mmh. No. Not going to call you over and then fall asleep on you. Deserve better than that." She fought back a yawn - very comfortable lap - before continuing. "You do, I mean. Not that tired, anyway. But...thank you, Ellie. Have...always just had to endure, or ignore. It's a nice change to do something about the really bad ones. Rare or not."
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The change in the young inventor was almost immediate: she gradually started to just relax, all the tightness flowing out of muscles she didn't even realize she had tensed. Even her face relaxed, eyebrows unknitting and corners of her mouth softening; after just a few minutes the difference between wrung-out-from-pain and just wrung-out-from-being-tired was abundantly clear. She sighed, settling back a little and just enjoying the soothing relative painlessness. "Mmmh. S'nice," she muttered, shifting. "Maybe magic's not so bad."
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Hesitating, Mara was at least not in so much pain that she couldn't blush a bit. More than a bit, really, but she grudgingly, and carefully, moved to the bed and laid on her back with her head in Ellie's lap. not quite how I imagined this - ow - would laugh if my brain wasn't trying to break open my skull - not literally - still - feels like it "Makes me feel like a child," she weakly joked, closing her eyes to keep her brain thinking as few situationally inappropriate things as possible. "I think. Hard to judge."
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Mara shook her head - carefully - and pushed herself up onto her feet. "Kind. But can manage...on my own. Don't walk with my brain," she wryly pointed out, if a little weakly. "Usually just need to avoid loud noise. And bright lights." and sharp movement - and what I eat - keep the list short - don't want her to worry She was, at least, right about that - she stubbornly made her way onto her feet, over to the kitchen and up the spiral stairs without looking any extra worse for wear. That was at least partly because she'd apparently covered the windows that would normally shine down into her loft, if not this time than at some point in the past.
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"Sorry," Mara managed, though just knowing Ellie had arrived made her feel a little better. "Didn't mean to bother. But...thank you. For coming. And hi." She looked strung out. Not that she usually didn't, but usually she looked like she'd missed a night of sleep or had lost too much time to a difficult puzzle; right now she looked like she'd been put through the wringer or hadn't slept in a week, or both - disheveled, with tired eyes and the sort of movements you see in people who are afraid to shift too quickly. "Not...as bad as it looks," she tried to reassure Ellie. "I think. Don't own many mirrors. But usually isn't. Just...head. Hurts."
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Mara gingerly hung up the phone, sighing in - if not true relief - at least anticipation of relief. She looked around for a keyboard, finally spotting a bit of black plastic peeking out from under one of her jackets; this she used (carefully and quietly) to order her security system on standby and the main warehouse door unlocked and open. It took a few minutes, time enough to reflect that these things were really, really slow without using her mind directly on the system - she started to consider the pros and cons of a better interface versus better security before deciding that she really, really didn't want to think that hard at the moment. At long last - ages of careful typing - the front door clicked and swung open just a little, and she sat back on the workbench, scrunched up as much as she could and trying to resist the temptation to put her head in a heavy-duty industrial vise.
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Mara made a strangled noise and fumbled for the dial to turn the volume down on the old phone. Way, way down. "Remember...first date. Sort of. The Lab." She paused, as the memory of the food from that night brought with it a decent bit of nausea; she shook her head (and instantly regretted doing so), getting her thoughts back on track. "Headaches. You offered to help if I got a really bad one? I...." Now, of course, she had a few second thoughts; she fumbled with the curled-up phone cord for a moment. "If...you're not busy. Could...use your help. I think. Wouldn't bother you, but...head's worst it's been in months. Less stress, maybe, or...."
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April 5th, 2011, 6:26pm Mara sat on the floor of her warehouse, back against the wall that held her monitors; usually this position would have gotten a lot of concerned curiosity out of Puppy, but she'd long since turned him off to silence his whirring and beeping. Normally innocuous noise had been pretty painful when she'd woken up this morning, and her head had only gotten worse since then - at the moment she had both hands on her skull like she was trying to keep it from exploding, grimacing at every car that drove by, every loud and unidentifiable noise from the warehouse district beyond the walls that, thankfully, blocked most of the light. The small bottle of extra-strength migraine medicine on a nearby bench got an accusing, hurt glare for failing to be even remotely effective. bad day - been a long time - months? - call her - don't want to bother her - call her - leads to questions - trust her - call her Very, very carefully avoiding the few shafts of light that shone through the windows near her roof, Dragonfly made her way to one of the benches, shifted aside some miscellaneous junk (hissing at the noise a piece of metal made when it fell off and hit concrete), and did something truly rare: physically dialed a number.
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Dragonfly blinked, glancing at Jill in surprise. "Really....?" coincidence? - intersection of magic and science? - promising - operating on similar fundamental principles, maybe? - overriding rules of reality - rules of reality that override - very strange - learn more later - means warping engines are almost magic? - amusing thought - Arthur C. Clarke might approve She stayed close to Jill until the police actually came up to them, and even then moved away with great reluctance, making the space needed to pull a very messy and undignified pile of villains out of storage, unfolding them as one large group on the pavement. Well. Maybe a few inches above the pavement. It was going to be a while before she forgave them for ruining dinner and trying to crack open Jill's ribcage.
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She pulled a face. "That's...complex," she begrudgingly admitted, apparently not happy about one of the aspects of her technology she couldn't adequately explain. "Unconscious? Forever. Normal objects, forever. Forever until power source runs dry, anyway. Awake, living things...mmh. Can manage to reassert their own space...somehow. Seems like an innate property of living creatures - somehow know, or reality knows, how they 'should' be. Very strange." She shook her head, wrapping an arm around Jill's waist as they walked. "But long enough to get them into police hands."
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Grimacing, Dragonfly followed Jill's gaze toward the...assorted semi-fluids staining the floor. "Effective, at least. Don't mind so much as long as I don't get it on me. Not the worst I've ever...." To her instant chagrin, Dragonfly actually squeaked in surprise, though she tried to cover it with a quick cough as the blush spread across her face. "Did...what I could. Not very durable, myself, but wouldn't have fared well alone. Not that I like seeing you get hurt, anyway. But you're a good fighter." She paused, raised an eyebrow, and added, "...for a sidekick."
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Dragonfly frowned, but nodded, quietly stepping aside so that people could easily pass by. As an afterthought, she pulled Guy Fawkes into her pocket, too; not that she'd especially mind seeing the guy walked on, but having him disappear into the exiting crowd would be just her luck and she was pretty sure she had precious little luck still remaining. At least Jill was taking care of that crowd. was never good at that - not without adrenaline or impending crisis "Good with them. Civilians, I mean. Authoritative. It's...attractive."
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Dragonfly winced, glancing hesitantly at the camera phones but apparently deciding she had other priorities. "Are you okay? Was...not a pleasant-looking hit. Not exactly how I hoped dinner would end. Need to rest, or get outside help, or...guess we have to wait at least for the police to arrive...." She was fretting, and she knew it, but she couldn't really help herself; she wasn't really that used to having people to fret over, much less being in fret-worthy situations. and last time it went - mmh - badly - doesn't seem bad - self-healing limits? - too many unknowns - not an ideal date
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"Think I used the last of mine when dinner was interrupted," Dragonfly added, watching Guy Fawkes rattle in the bio-electric sphere like a rag doll. "Am now on anti-patience. Because you five," she practically spat at Heka, punctuating the thought with a spatial shockwave that had significantly better results than the last, "somehow decided to pick this restaurant to rob!"
