What Was Old Is New Again IC

[angrydurf]

The Opening Gala of the Super Museums new exhibit 'Secret's of the Allies of Freedom' was a long time in coming. Many of the displays were well known even if they had until recently been classified. However there were even more of the only recently declassified that were all new. The crowd was an odd mix of historians and top military brass among the usual 'anything for a party' set that frequented such events regardless of actual interest.

Ace Danger of course was a little bit of all of the above. He had been there after all. He drifted through the exhibits devoted to old friends and foes alike with an implacable mask of calm disinterest tweaking the nose of the occasional stodgy old general with a good natured joke here and there but for him keeping a low profile and letting the exhibit itself take center stage.

[alderwitch]

"Gutentag, Herr Danger, I hope you have come prepared," a husky voice spoke up from behind him, her German accent deliberately over the top and her tone only slightly mocking. Bombshell stepped up next to him, her outfit unusually subdued with a pencil slim skirt and jacket both in a dark navy. "For not only have I prepared ze tank below with sharks. I haff also equiped zem with radio controlled explosives!"

Her accent fell away until it was simply her posh Brit voice. "Good old Baron von Kreuger. Many ideas but none of them good. Died last year, you know. I sent a card."

[angrydurf]

Ace turned slowly to face Bombshell with a light smile dancing at the edge of his lips, "Talya." he murmured as he took her hand to plant a delicate kiss across he knuckles. "Yes I had heard." he said with a shake of his head, "I had a bouquet sent down." he said with a shrug. "So I do hope you're here on pleasure rather than business." he said smoothly his hand still gently holding her own.

[alderwitch]

"Well, I dare say you Yanks have more than a few of my countreyman's possessions nailed up on display, Captain," Bombshell said in her usual mix of playful and threatening. She made no move to reclaim her hand, however, and let him draw her closer to thread that hand through his arm. She bent her blonde head close to his, "We could play a game, you know. You guess what I'm here to take and if you guess right, perhaps I'l come up with a prize, hmmm?"

She trailed alongside him, giving Ace a few moments to turn that over in his head before she turned to look at a display that had her own image arms linked through an officer who was long gone and she sighed, "Or perhaps I'm here to enjoy the homage even if my more colorful exploits have been edited out. Isn't that always the way?"

[angrydurf]

Ace smirked at her with a small shake of his head, "And all a the express permission of their estates." he said with grin.

He looked over at her challenging offer consideringly as they made their way past the exhibits of assorted wartime exploits and nodded agreement, "Well this all," he gestured at the displays, "Certainly fits the narrative better than luring young naive officers and clerks into treason." he replied with a small pat to her hand.

"I daresay you'll make your try and I'll try to stop you regardless." he finally replied to her challenge, "So what prize will you demand if you win?" he challenged back with a dangerously lazy smile.

[alderwitch]

"Well, I pretty much ought to, you know. I have a bloody angel heralding that I've reformed. You know how I hate the whole going soft thing. Its a damnably hard rumour to escape. You are awfully wealthy, so your prize for winning really should be much smaller than mine," She returned his smile with one of her own and ignored the appreciative looks their direction. She knew full well what a handsome Aryan looking couple they made. They'd both used it shamelessly during their war years for thair side.

She stopped at one of the cases to idly look over the mementos and changed the subject slightly, "So they really did declassify the Atomic Man project. I thought that would be buried a few more decades at least. Are you going again, this year, to the veteran's ceremonies?"

[angrydurf]

Ace shrugged nonchalantly, "The winds of change blow strong these days. Transparency is the new buzzword." he explained with an easy grin, "The whole story hasn't been released of course, to protect the subjects in their twilight years." he quoted with a laugh.

He glanced over to her once more with a wink, "I hear they have a very secure retirement program." he joked with an easy smile as he pulled her tight to his side for a sudden picture. "I'd heard such rumors of your reformation and assumed them exaggerated." he offered with a shrug, "But I'm glad you came, even with everything else you deserve to be here."

[alderwitch]

"The rumours of my reformation have been greatly exagerated. Although Scarab has made an excellent pitch to my better nature, I remain undecided. The last time I heard that speech it all ended very poorly. For me, of course," she paused to lean her cheek into Ace's and gave a bright smile for the cameras. It fell away once the photo op was over.

Tilting her chin up she examined the area around them and sighed, "Among the ghosts and relics, yes, I suppose I do belong here. Forgive me, these sorts of reunions always leave me maudlin."

[angrydurf]

Ace laughed at that, "Well arguably it turned out worse for Alexander." he said the laugh still coloring his voice, "Well times have changed," he replied, "I won't say for the better though that may just be my age showing." he joked easily. Ace looked back to her, "But today I think you'll find us good guys far more accepting of shades of gray." he explained with a wink.

"Old relics like us need our moments of being maudlin, otherwise all we have is shaking our walker as the kids devil music." he teased as at least by appearance the pair of them were the youngest people in attendance.

[alderwitch]

"I do hope that's not a joke about his death, Ace. Your sense of humor gets more and more bent with age, I swear," Bombshell gave him a dirty look to mask the small pulse of guilt for not being there, "He was trying to get them to reduce my sentance when he died. I told him it would never work."

She shrugged and tossed her hair over one shoulder, gliding along on spindly peep toes, "Bite your tongue. If I'm ever infirm, I intend to be thrown into a volcano like a pagan sacrifice."

[angrydurf]

Ace rolled his eyes, "I'm just saying there are worse fates." he explained with an easy shrug. "I know, but by that time no one wanted to hear us anymore." he said with some bitterness, "Those of us who remembered tried to remind them of your service but in those days it was a political death sentence to look weak on crime." he huffed not that most of the politicos hadn't been in the pockets of the dirtiest criminals to start with.

He grinned over at her once more wiping away the unpleasant memories of the past, "Won't work. Simian tried it when I disrupted that cult he tried to start up on the borders of Dakana in 85'." he said in a flat tone that really left a great deal of question as to if he was being serious or not.

[alderwitch]

"Well, of course it didn't work. You hadn't been a virgin for, what, forty years give or take? Won't those silly monkeys ever learn?" Bombshell parried back with a wicked grin. Her bright gaze strayed to a case over his shoulder for a moment and then back to his face.

She curled her fingers around his bicep tighter and smiled. "Now, enough of such maudlin talk. I haven't seen your name in papers lately either. Famous Ace Danger, finally retiring?"

[angrydurf]

Ace shot her a guarded look his exploits of late had been less front and center despite his membership in the league. "Not exactly." he replied with a wry smile, "I have been working on more personal matters of late however." he explained with a suggestive wink. "Besides people like us never really retire. Try as we might the siren call of the next grand adventure calls." he teased, "After all here you are right?"

[alderwitch]

"Do you really think you and I are still in the same category," Bombshell asked with a moment of genuine curiosity. "I get called everything from 'petty thief with delusions of grandeur' to 'forgotten hero'. I don't know, Ace, the world changes and I don't change with it. I think the line moves around me rather than my morals shifting ovemuch."

[angrydurf]

Ace shrugged, "The world shifts around all of us some of us jet cope better than others." he replied with a wry grin, "And though thief you may be you are in no way petty." he complimented expertly, "Though delusions of grandeur may be apt." he added with a cheeky wink.

The legendary hero laughed his same airy laugh from all those years ago, "Same category definitely I'm just best in class." he goaded her once more.

[alderwitch]

"Best in class, eh?" Bombshell asked archly before holding his wallet up in one slim hand. Her lips curved in a crimson smile and her blue eyes sparkled as she held the slender leather folio. She flipped it up idly, letting it spin in the air before she caught it and held it out to him, wiggling it a little at him as she offered it with mock gallantry, "Missing something there, sport?"

[angrydurf]

Ace rolled his eyes at her antics and plucked back the wallet. "I take back the not petty comment." he replied snarkily as he tucked the wallet back away. He didn't bother checking to see if anything was missing if she really didn't want him to know what she had gotten he wouldn't find it anyway.

"Well you did return it." He retorted, "I'd say my sparkling personality has won out again."

[alderwitch]

Bombshell laughed and laughed, drawing a few appreciative glances as she patted his arm, "We all have a little pettiness in us, love. It's just a matter of being able to draw it out. In that, I must say, you are most certainly the master."

Her heels clicked on the floor and she smirked at him, drawing him towards the case highlighting his own exploits. "How could it not, you are THE Ace Danger, after all. Or perhaps its that heart of gold that I keep hidden away and only bring out to save kittens and orphans."

[angrydurf]

Ace smiled at the memories the case brought back eyes artfully dodging the trailing end of the nameplates of those old allies. He glanced down then to Bombshell with a wicked grin, "I am the master of many things, few of them petty." he said with a wink. He turned then away from his exploits, he had all the memories after all and the case was but a pale shadow of the truth.

He turned to her as they broke away, "Hardly just for those occasions my dear." he said solemnly as he stepped aside to reveal the more public of her teams exploits. "You had every opportunity." he said with a shrug, "But we all make choices we regret one day, some of us are just unlucky enough to live to see that day come."

[alderwitch]

It was only by virtue that Ace was both a master of his own emotional facade as well as the fact that he actually knew what sort of emotions this thing brought up in someone who had lived it, that Ace could catch the subtle flickers of emotion across the smooth beauty of Bombshell's face. She lifted one hand to lightly touch the glass case over one of the faded photographs and smiled faintly, "I forget, you know, just how young we all looked in those days. Of course, you and I can just look in a mirror and see the same basic thing. You can tell, however, if you know where to look that we actually were young in these photos."

She glanced down and laughed, "Oh, thank God, they got my birth-date wrong, still. Thank heaven for the little vanities."

[angrydurf]

"They are often the kindest." Ace agreed taking her arm once more. "All of us were young." he said solemnly, "Some of us even managed to stick around long enough for that to end." he said with a nonchalant shrug that hid the true emotion in his words.

He smiled to Bombshell that same winning smile that broke hearts all those years ago, "I would say the world grew older after the war." It had really been the end of the worlds innocence well an end at least.

[alderwitch]

"Oh, Ace, that's what every generation says. Remember our parents generation had the war to end all wars and still there was a worse one after that. Sometimes, I don't look forward to the next one. Other times, I rather think that's the only time I'll really be of any use." Her smile was just as glittering and just as hollow. "What a depressing debacle this has been. Cocktails?"

[angrydurf]

Ace grinned, "You have the best ideas Talya." he replied and steered her over to the wet bar and easily caught the barmans attention, "Scotch on the rocks." he requested and gestured to Bombshell, "And a dirty Martini for the lady." he added with a waggle of his brow her direction.

He turned to wait for the drinks and smiled to the lovely thief, "So have you caught up with you know who since you got out?" he inquired uncertain how the young lady would take Alexanders replacement.

[alderwitch]

"Of course, I did. You know, a little forewarning that they were the same person would have been, perhaps, warranted," Bombshell took the martini with a graceful nod of thanks and a vaguely dirty look. She frowned at Ace. "I am going to laugh and laugh when you finally fall, Ace Danger. And then probably send you a whole case of scotch."

Her expression softened marginally as she added softly, "Thought he was gone for good after that whole... Incident."

[angrydurf]

Ace smirked defenses still fully deployed, "I dear lady am made of sterner stuff." he replied with a wink. It was a lie but one so old Ace almost believed it. It was likely that he'd fall again but not any time soon.

Ace accepted their drinks seamlessly passing of a generous tip and offered Bombshell her drink, "We all did he played it very close to the vest last time around. Probably for the best everyone would have been looking for him and who knows what would have happened."