ic Bananaphone (IC)

[Gizmo]

Erik responded to Taylor's question by shoving a generous forkful of pancakes into his mouth, pouring syrup on the remaining stack with his free hand. Shrugging innocently, the younger man indicated that he would absolutely love to comment on the persecution of vampires and his friends' mental and emotional well-being, but his mouth was full and gosh darn if that wouldn't just be rude.

[Avenger Assembled]

Jack studied Erik for a moment, processing through the responses that he thought would work against the other man's obfuscation. It was really something of an intellectual exercise, since none of his innate emotional responses would be terribly helpful in this situation. Instead he took an aspartame packet from its spot on the wall and studied it, crinkling it in his fingers, listening to the artificial sweetener slide around at his touch. When he was sure he could act without betraying his feelings, he threw the packet at Erik's head. "Dumbass," he said with an edged smile. "Now, did you have something you wanted to say, or are you just going to eat pancakes on my dime?"

[alderwitch]

Taylor sighed and jiggled the baby a little so that she had the one hand free to eat when food arrived. She slanted Jack a look as he started to aim sugar packets at their dubious guest and said with mild amusement, "If you start escalating, I'd like the warning to leave before we're kicked out of this place. I can always go wait in the car while the two of you finish up in here."

Unlike her inscrutable husband, Taylor's mobile face flickered through equal parts amusement and annoyance. One or two more exchanges of this sort, and Taylor was just going to start getting blunt.

[Gizmo]

Erik's fork spun between his fingers, deftly parrying the launched packet away from his face. "Actually, yeah," he replied with a lopsided smirk which seemed more genuine than Jack's forced smile, "that was pretty much the plan." The younger man shrugged as he set about cutting another mouthful from the syrup drenched stack in front of him. "Don't get me wrong, I actually kinda like you guys, in a 'you mostly scare the butt-flattering pants off of me' way, but you tracked down my family and invaded my privacy in a way I know you'd flip over if our positions were reversed," he pointed out calmly. "It's not really something I want to reward, y'know?" The fencer filled his mouth once more, pushing the pancakes over to one cheek to mumble, "These are seriously fantastic, though."

[Avenger Assembled]

"Maybe you don't understand." This time there was no artifice, no fake smile. This time, as far as Erik could see behind Jack's eyes, there was nothing. It wasn't like looking at a villain or a thug: it was like looking at a shark. "Allow me to explain. Today I showed you that I had information about your family that I would not use, the same that you had about mine, and invited you out to a pleasant meal with my wife and son. I did this because of all the Interceptors, I thought you were the one I could talk to as a man instead of as an arrogant child." He smiled again, and this time Erik saw that what he'd thought was a forced smile wasn't forced at all: it was a smile to go with those flat eyes, a shark's grin on a man's face. "But perhaps I was wrong, Erik. It's been known to happen. Perhaps the honor of your team, the honor of your own name, is less important to you than your dignity. I'm sure Errol Flynn would be proud."

[Gizmo]

Erik arched an eyebrow as he leisurely chewed his mouthful. Swallowing, he leaned back in the booth and spread his hands. "Well, shucks, buddy, you can unmask me, put my family at risk and call me names, but if you're gonna insult my taste in movies, I guess we're gonna have to throw down, huh?" he drawled with an unconcerned smirk. The fencer cleaned out one ear with a pinkie in a clearly exaggerated display of nonchalance. "I should probably be all angry, but I'm starting to get that you're just really, really bad at dealing with people. I get that," he shrugged. "I mean, you do remember that I only knew where you live 'cause I was there doing you a favour, right? None of mine are planning on coming after any of yours, sunshine. Okay? Why are we still discussing this? Loosen up already." Erik turned back to his pancakes with a rueful shake of his head.

[alderwitch]

"Okay, enough. Time out." Taylor spoke up, frowning. "I really am going to wait outside if this is what the conversation is just going to be. I don't actually need to eat at all and I have, literally, a dozen other things I could be doing."

She shifted like she wanted to fold her arms up and scowl at them both but all she ended up doing was jiggling the baby a little bit. It was not so easy to look tough while bouncing a baby, but Taylor did fix both of the men with a scowl. "The point of this meeting is to talk about the fight that this whole thing is eventually going to blow up into and make sure its not a debacle like the last time. And if it does explode spectacularly, that no one is going to get seriously hurt and that includes your family, Erik. The reason we're here is to show you that we already have that information and we're no more going to use it than what you know about us. Along with any other ground rules that need to get set down. And ground rules do need to be set down."

Taylor turned her frown from her husband to the swashbuckler and just shook her head, "Clearly you ARE worried that we'd actually harm your family or you wouldn't be so upset that we called you at home. We didn't do anything to break your cover and we're not planning on doing anything to break your cover and I really can't think of a better way that we could have proven that today than what we've done. Can you?"

[Gizmo]

Erik blinked, taken off guard by the vehement reaction. "What? I'm not...!" Setting his fork down he sighed. "Okay, look, it's like this. I am terrified basically all of the time, y'know? I make jokes 'cause that lets me do what I need to do, but I'm not bulletproof or super-healing or anything. Any day now, somebody with a gun's gonna get lucky and I'll get dead." The fencer rubbed his face with both hands, all smug wryness gone from his expression. "And then I'm not going to be around to protect them. I patrol 'til I'm exhausted, then train 'til I collapse 'cause it's the only way I can get to sleep." He looked between Jack and Taylor, his expressive eyes in stark contrast to the vampire's. "I get that you guys don't get days off from, y'know, all your stuff, but the only thing that keeps me going is being able to go home and turn it off sometimes. The other Interceptors? They are family to me, and they don't even know my real name. I need to keep them separate. That is the only thing I've ever asked for." Erik ran a hand through his hair while the other moved constantly across the tabletop, as if he were unsure what to do with them. "And now I know that if somebody, not you guys specifically but whoever, really wants to, they can still rip that down." He met Jack eyes, and a little of that familiar anger joined the bleakness there. "So, seriously, I get what you were going for, I guess, but I'm basically freaking out here. Also, the pancake things was hilarious, so I'm not apologizing for that." The corner of his mouth pulled upward in an attempt at a smile, but the expression instead conveyed a plea to let the young man have his one and only defense against the insanity of their world.

[alderwitch]

Taylor nodded slightly and held the baby out for Jack to take. When her hands were free, she reached into the Void with the table concealing the action from the rest of the patrons. Her left hand vanished and reappeared with a small and battered wallet. She flipped it open and pulled out a thick stack of pictures and pushed the little wallet folio across the table to Erik to take. It was a series of her relatives, a huge family of several siblings about the same age as Taylor and her parents, nieces and nephews. Taylor reached over to flip it to her closest and favorite brother, a tall lanky chinese man with the same dimples making a face with her at the camera.

"I get where you're coming from, Erik. I really, really do. I was exactly the same way. I didn't trust my family with my secrets and I didn't trust my friends with my family. They got drawn in anyways and because of it we almost lost him to something that was my enemy. I kick myself for it every single day. I'm not saying you have to trust us with your family but you should trust someone, because when you're out of commission and they're vulnerable, it'll be a huge relief to know that someone's going to look out for them." Taylor said and pulled her hand back from the pictures, leaving them on the table. "The point being, we're not going to invade your home. They'll never see us, or know about us, but you should remember we're all on the same side. If you called and said there was trouble for them, we'd be there in a heartbeat with no questions asked and all the powers we have out to protect them. I know you're not going to believe me, I was twice as stubbornly determined to keep everything separate and I well remember it."

She sighed and reached up to fiddle with her amulet, her fingertips plucking at the chain and twisting it through her fingertips, "Which is really what we're here about today. Jack's worried - I'm worried - that people are going to forget if we do this thing that we're all on the same side. Grim's joke with the stake Jack dismissed but I haven't. It's not a funny joke. She wouldn't be amused if someone even pretended they were going to wave around an iron crowbar. We all spend too much time facing real danger to all be put at risk over some ego and with some of the people involved, things can get heated fast. You weren't around the last time a super-hero group exploded but it wasn't pretty. With actual combat and real temper behind it, it wouldn't hard for people to get hurt."

[Avenger Assembled]

"Is that funny to you?" Jack asked Erik in reply, cocking his head and studying Erik like a bug on the bottom of his shoe. "What happened to my brother-in-law, I mean. If it's tough to put yourself in Taylor's shoes, let me put it another way. If someone came to your house and put their hands on your family, would that be funny? Would that be a good time to flail around and order pancakes?" He gave Erik a look as sharp as any knife Jack of Blades wielded. "No? That would make you _angry_, wouldn't it? You'd want to track them down and take the hands that were raised against the people you love, as a lesson to anyone who'd dare cross that line. And rightly so, I might add, whatever sneering judgments you might get from other superheroes for that."

Jack Jr. was beginning to fuss at the sharp tone of adult conversation around him, so Jack sighed, settling back in his seat and gently bouncing the baby. Kid really did have good ears. "I'm sure it makes you very unhappy that your mask is off and that other people know you for the man you are. I've been there, I can understand that. But if you're not going to pretend to feel anything about our problems, I'm afraid I'm just not human enough to feign sympathy for yours." He gave Erik a level look. "So what's it going to be? You going to do the Merry Prankster routine on the graves of innocents some more? Because that's fine: I did all this to find out what you and the Interceptors are like, and that'll tell me everything I need to know. Or are we going to sit here and talk like adults about what we can do for each other? Because I'd like to be surprised by human decency for once."

[Gizmo]

Man... Erik groaned inwardly, resisting the nigh overwhelming urge to rub the sides of his head, that big feelings thing would have totally worked on Lynn or Bill. The young man found himself quickly running out of strategies to deal with new parents. Figured people who hang out with Ace flippin' Danger so much would go for a mood-lightening joke or charming irreverence, but that backfired. Granted, making the leap from the exaggerated ordering of fried batter to insulting the memory of her dead brother is the sort of association a crazy person would make, but it's not like I'm dealing with the most reasonable of individuals here.

He considered his options. Can't afford to tick these two off, the swordsman reminded himself, not now. Which rules out giving Broodmeister my honest opinion of self-righteous bull. Presumably immunity to logic is like a vampire power something. That wasn't to say that Erik didn't feel great sympathy for Taylor. She'd suffered exactly the kind of loss he'd been dreading for years now but knew he couldn't truly, fully appreciate despite that. He also wasn't entirely aware of the events she was referring to beyond the occasional offhand remark he'd noted from Lynn, so he could only assume that she was operating from a position of experience, and her actions at least made sense to her. Erik failed to see how spying on him was supposed to encourage his ability to trust others, but perhaps there was a bigger picture he was failing to grasp; as such he strained to give the sorceress the benefit of the doubt.

Jack, on the other hand, seemed to be going out of his way to be absolutely inflammatory. Erik was pretty sure he'd more than once made it clear over the course of the conversation that the Interceptors had not intention of attacking the vampire nor his loved ones. The idea still stuck him as patently absurd. How that took Jack to 'not feeling anything about their problems' he honestly couldn't fathom, and the line about mocking innocent deaths... It's a good thing for everyone that he's holding a baby. Talking to the vigilante the way he'd talk to a friend or teammate clearly wasn't helping. The only thing left to try was to prove that he was in fact willing to put his family ahead of his pride, though if all went well, no one else at the table would ever know.

"Dios," he breathed, his expression bleak. "I had no idea. I... I'm so sorry for your loss, Taylor. Jack, you're... well, you're right." Erik folded his hands in front on the table before him, his expression the very picture of remourse and a desire to make amends. "What did you want to know, specifically?"

[alderwitch]

"Oh, God, no. He lived but he's, well, a little darker for it." Taylor grimaced at that, and rubbed a hand over her brow, "He was tortured in Hell for a week or so. It changes a person. I'm not saying you should trust us, but when you mentioned you don't share even that sort of information with your team-mates, I know how that can backfire. You can trust us, but I rather doubt you will just yet. That's neither here nor there, however."

She sighed and shook her head, letting her hand fall back down to nervously twist the amulet around her neck. "Look, there's a reason we're concerned. Grim did threaten to take Jack out a time or two before and I have no idea how the rest of your team feels about people like us. Say, if this rematch does happen." Because in Taylor's mind, there was some doubt about that happening at all. She could probably keep Jack distracted all weekend if she put her mind to it, right? "In order to really test the defenses of your team, that's a pretty live fire sort of situation going on there. So, if it gets out of hand, who calls it over? What if someone gets hurt, who's going to call an all clear? It's like any sort of training, it needs some boundaries."

[Gizmo]

Wait, what? If he didn't die what the hell was... Oh. Oh! Things abruptly clicked in Erik's head. He's talking about the other vampires he mentioned. Geez, guy really isn't a fan of tension breaking antics. Duly noted. The fencer still thought the brooding man seated across from him was overreacting, but at least now he understood what he was overreacting to. It made his show of reticence a little easier to sell.

"Well, Colt's probably the least likely to take things personally, and he can keep Grim in line, if that's what you're worried about," he decided after a moment of thought. "Fulcrum's the most powerful, but like I said, she's not mad at you, and Dynamo'll stop if we tell him to. He wants to win, but he's not taking it too seriously either way, as far as I can tell."

[Avenger Assembled]

I'd thought him a coward and a bully before, but now... Jack hmmed inside his head, listening to those sweet words from Erik Espadas. This is really no different than how he acted at the fights, he remembered. When that teenager in green and I confronted him on how he was acting, he backed down there too. But somehow I have a feeling that if I asked him today if he was right to spit in that child's face, he'd still say the same thing. Despite himself, Avenger had to admit they had something in common there. Never back down. Not and mean it.

"None of you are children, and neither am I. If you don't do anything that'll keep me from walking home at the end of the night, we can call ourselves settled. Now, the terms. I was thinking that engaging all of you in personal combat would be a little silly, so why don't we make it capture the flag?"

[alderwitch]

"Fan-tas-tic," Taylor said as they settled down to work out the specifics. She left the baby in Jack's arms just in case the tension started to rise back up again. Plus, it meant that she her hands free to eat for once, while making it less obvious that Jack wasn't eating.

Hunh, I wonder if Jack has noticed that the baby is really excellent camouflage... Of course he has.

"If this is going to be like flag football with the shirts and no-shirts teams, I'm bringing my camera," Taylor teased her husband with a dimpled grin. "You are making the 'flag' an actual flag aren't you?"

[Gizmo]

Responding to the innuendo from the crazy vampire's wife would be a bad idea, wouldn't it? Erik considered. Well, maybe- no. Yes. Yes it would. The young man coughed into his fist to cover the momentary hesitation. "Yeah, sure, capture the flag. You want to do it up all Team Fortress style, or we talking like touch football, with the flags in the belts?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"I think it makes more sense to make it a group activity. It's supposed to be a team-building exercise for your group. I'm sure you're all more than competent in our own individual areas of expertise." He resisted the urge to speculate in that area, going on to add, "I'm sure you can suggest a trophy better than I can. If it's something a normal-sized person can get out of the building and into a car? It wouldn't be very fair to you to have it just be "Give it to Avenger and he disappears," I think."

[alderwitch]

"So is it going to be a timed thing or is there going to be another 'trophy' that they can get from you and get someplace to get the win?" Taylor pointed out pragmatically as she sliced her meal into small squares. "There really should be, otherwise there's not going to be any clear end to it. If they don't have anything trophy wise, I'm sure I can dig something out of the closet for it."

[Gizmo]

Erik scratched the stubble on his chin idly. "Timed means we'd have to know when Jack was, y'know, breaking is so we could start the clock. Maybe we could 'tag' him out? Grab something off of him or 'x' number of touches, something like that?" More than once as he spoke, the younger man had to clamp down of an offhand remark or wry rejoinder, forcing himself to remain solely on topic and humourless. He found it extremely wearying, but dealing with the couple's hair-trigger ire was infinitely more so.

[Avenger Assembled]

"A dozen touches: that's less than they use in regulation fencing, as I'm sure you know, and it's two for each of your team, assuming you opt to stretch it out between each individual piece on the board. If not, there's no reason why a small group can't do all that in a few minutes. Might as well give everyone a chance to compete. And of course I'll call in and let you know ahead of time that I'm coming. That wouldn't happen in real life, of course, but I think it's a deserved favor for you." When the negotiations were done, Jack perfectly willing to negotiate with everything Erik wanted, Jack did just as he'd promised and paid Erik's bill, flashing a row of crisp hundreds in the process, and Jack watched as Erik rose to leave.

[alderwitch]

Taylor took the baby back while Jack payed and fished around for the bottle. At least she was starting to get used to the different noises. Not to mention the hyper narrow focus on the waitress when she passed by, his little blue eyes fixed on her like she was a bright and shiny object. Taylor rather thought it was best to get the bottle in his mouth before he started trying to bite fingers again. That was always hard to explain.

"Thank you for your time today," Taylor said politely as the conversation drew to a close.

[Gizmo]

"Yeah, cheers," Erik replied, careful not to exit the restaurant too quickly. Back out on the street he sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, glad to have the conversation over with. The fencer wished he could say that he'd at least gained greater insight into the strange couple, but that probably would have been overstating things. He certainly didn't understand how Jack could face street thugs with righteous fury then turn around and defend his less scrupulous brethren. Nor did he understand how Taylor could invade his family's privacy after what had happened to her brother - the though of demonic torture sparked a familiar itching in the metamagi's right palm, one he told himself he was just imagining. The absolute sureness with which the new parents had presented their positions despite all that made Erik feel unbalanced, like he was missing something obvious or speaking a different language. Not the folks I'd put on the top of the 'give home address to' list, anyway. Married people are weird.

[Avenger Assembled]

When Erik was gone, Jack cracked his neck. "Well, that went well. What a-." He looked apologetically at Jack Jr, who grinned at him in reply. He grinned. "There, no swears in front of the baby," he said with a wink in Taylor's direction. "But I think we got everything we needed." With a deep sigh, he touched the communicator hidden inside his lapel. "And the signal went through too. Let's get out of here."