A Trip Between Two Worlds (IC)

[Gizmo]

Trevor smiled widely enough to show a hint of teeth as Erin set to work with the PDA, his own mood improving along with hers. Even so, his left eyebrow twitched uncertainly as Mark and Marcie made their excuses to run off. No. There's no- Not even Mark ... No, wait, of course he would. The lanky youth let out a soft sigh, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment.

Further down the bleachers, Tricia came to a similar conclusion. "Explains the capes, anyway..." she mumbled to herself, a look of glum embarrassment passing over her features. With a light cough, she turned to the remaining teens. "Ah, yeah. The common room makes sense, unless there's somewhere else you wanted to see while you're here." She doubted keeping the Whites together for any prolonged period of time would end well, but it didn't seem like a good idea to abandon their doubles, either.

[Avenger Assembled]

Mark and Marcie made their goodbyes and headed off to Marcie's room, where luckily Michelle wasn't going to be back yet for another couple of hours. Once there, Marcie turned and locked the door, just before Mark swept her up in a long, hungry kiss.

A little while later:

"You've got to understand," said Marcie as Mark's arms went around her waist, "I'm not, like, Edna. I wouldn't just do this with any random guy I knew for a day. But you're me, and you're not just like me, you're...we think the same, and we feel the same about almost everything. So I know we'll be really good at this."

Mark moved his hands up, then down, fingering Marcie's keys. "All right, well, I've never done it this way, but I'll try anything once. Let's rock!" He watched the screen carefully as the Beatles began to play, Paula McCartney's legendary "Hey June" on Marcie's Playstation speakers as he and Marcie rocked out on Guitar Hero. They did indeed make a good team, fingers moving in rhythm, playing so fast and so accurately that they easily blew away the high score Zach had left there a couple of weeks earlier, the music rising to a crescendo as they won.

Afterwards, they sat together on the big couch in Marcie and Michelle's room, their noisy exertions having worn them both out for the moment. "Do you ever think about your mom?" Mark asked Marcie, giving her a sidelong look.

"A lot," she said quietly, not quite looking at him. "But...but that's one thing I can't change, you know. I couldn't change what happened, or what has happened, so..." She shook her head. "Why feel bad about things you can't change, right?"

"Yeah, you're right," agreed Mark, his arm around her shoulders. "I just...sometimes I wonder if I'm missing my dad enough. I mean I know he's not really gone, but he's certainly gone very far away, to where no one I know can follow. We...we had some plans, you know? Graduation, being on the Freedom League, and even if he can see it where he is, it's just...it's just not the same."

"I know," Marcie agreed, laying her head on his shoulder, her loose blonde hair on his back. "And it's so hard on my dad. Dr. Marquez is trying his best, but this is a little beyond her area of expertise. I tell her I'm OK everytime I go in, but she knows it's not true." Mark nodded in sympathetic understanding of her words. "So all I can do is be better. But I don't really know how to be better."

"Me neither," agreed Mark. "I just...maybe things will be easier if I can talk to him, you know? Just once, just to try and understand what happened, even just to say goodbye if he really can't come back. I just feel like I'm...I'm stuck in a story that has no ending, and I don't know how I can get through it." They sighed, together, and looked down into each other's eyes. "Let's do something else."

[Electra]

Eventually Erin, Trevor and Tricia wound up making their way into the common room, which looked very much the same as it did in their world. It had always been a pretty unisex place, so there wasn't much to change between universes. Erin tucked herself up on a corner of the couch and continued reading the book on PDF, occasionally glancing around the room to keep an eye on things. Aaron had made himself scarce as soon as they'd entered the dorm, rather than accompanying the others. As Mark had said, they were all in the same building, and wasn't that close enough?

[Gizmo]

"He's so angry a lot of the time," Tricia was explaining quietly, tugging on her cap as she struggled to articulate to Trevor her dilemma. "But then sometimes he's just sweet and you can tell he just want to keep everybody safe, and even when he's sad at least it's... it's real, and he... he just..."

"Can lift a truck over his head with one hand?" Trevor supplied in an immaculate deadpan, from his seat on the couch next to Erin. Without his black jacket, his overall look was much lighter and open apart from his disconcerting eye colouration.

Tricia's cheeks coloured darkly, but the corner of her mouth twitched upward. "First time we trained together, thought midnight mist was going to shoot out my ears," the willowy teen admitted.

[Electra]

"He's got reason to be angry, don't you think?" Erin asked, not looking up from Trevor's PDA. She really didn't want to get involved in this conversation, but she felt perversely driven to defend the copy of herself she didn't even like very much. "He hasn't had a whole lot of good things happen for him, compared to all the crap he got dished out. Anybody would be mad." She blushed herself, normal red that stood out starkly on her pale skin, and concentrated even harder on the reading.

[Gizmo]

"Very true," Trevor agreed after a long moment before adding offhandedly, "Should probably stop beating himself up over it, then."

Sitting in a chair next to the couch with her legs tucked under her, Tricia frowned mightily before leaning forward and removing her cap to swat Trevor about the head. "Stop that."

Her masculine counter part raised a hand to defend himself. "I was just-"

"No," she insisted, interrupting him with another swipe of her hat. The slim girl gave Erin a remorseful look, having revealed a dark bob with long, uneven bangs. "He really does think he's helping."

[Electra]

Erin shifted uncomfortably, looking between the two Midnights. She wanted to get up and just walk out, leave Trevor and Tricia to their encounter session or gossip or whatever it was, but there wasn't really anywhere to go. She couldn't go to her room, that would just mean encountering her own counterpart, and she wasn't supposed to get away from the building. And she'd already picked one fight today, she was tired of that route. "It's okay," she told Tricia instead, "I can smack him myself if he needs it. But generally he doesn't poke too hard." Attempting a look of nonchalance, she wrote a couple notes on the notepad she'd found on one of the shelves.

[Gizmo]

As Trevor's face fell into an appropriately abashed expression, Tricia cleared her throat and rose, swinging her long legs out and onto the floor. "Actually, ah, have to run back to my room for a bit. Be alright on your own?" Trevor glumly nodded an affirmative and his distaff double made good her escape, hastily replacing her cap on her head as she went.

After several long minutes of silence, he spoke up. "...sorry." Slouching forward is a manner that made even his lanky frame seem small, he covered half of his face with a palm. "Knew it was stupid second I said it. Just..." A mix of frustration and self reproach flickered across his set features as he struggled to school his expression.

[Electra]

Erin sighed and set the PDA down in her lap, struggling with the words for a minute. "It's just..." she began, then hesitated, then tried again. "I know I have a lot of problems, okay? And I get that it's frustrating. We're all hero types, you know, we want to help. But it's embarrassing to be the one who needs the help, and I don't... I really don't like to talk about it in front of other people. Even if you were pretending to talk about Aaron the guy."

She ran a hand through her hair and looked around the room, avoiding his eyes. "It's hard to look at him and see myself, and see all the things I don't like about myself. But that's something I have to face, and maybe talk to Dr. Marquez about if I need to. It's not something I want to start unpacking when we're on a mission, you know?"

[Gizmo]

For once there was nothing subtle about Trevor's expression, as acute distress played out over his features. "I didn't mean-" For a moment it appeared as though hair was writhing in dejection as thin wisps of midnight mist mingled with his dark locks, stopping short of forming a literal cloud over his head as he clamped down on his emotions. "Not a hero thing," he said quietly and tonelessly. "Don't need saving. Know that." Truthfully, seeing how hard Erin was on herself stirred up a directionless anger that sat in his gut, a nagging need to find someone responsible and kick their teeth in. The feeling was all the worse because he had no idea what to do with it, and the guilty knowledge that it wasn't about him. "Stupid," he repeated. "Won't happen again."

[Electra]

A few silent moments passed. "Maybe I don't need saving," Erin finally agreed, "but it's nice to know that someone cares enough to try sometimes. I guess maybe I need to get better about remembering I don't always need to do everything on my own." She tugged at the cuffs of the jacket he'd lent her, then reached out and put her arm around him, a little awkwardly.

[Gizmo]

Fumbling slightly with awkwardness of his own, Trevor slipped an arm around Erin's waist, a faint smile ghosting over his lips even as his eyes remained concerned. "Heh. Beautiful and willing to put up with stupidity." Leaning forward he gently touched his forehead to hers before pulling back. "Must have done something right," he decided softly, sliding over to close the remaining distance between them on the couch.

[Electra]

Erin chuckled. "Well, if you can put up with mine in return, we may really have something here." Forgetting homework for a minute, she settled in comfortably next to him, her head resting against his shoulder. "We've got some time to kill, I guess, want to see what the TV here is like with everybody the opposite gender? I bet it's really weird." This was a safe place, or at least a reasonable facsimile of one, and being with Trevor, for all his too-human frailty, made her feel oddly safe as well. It was nice to be able to turn off the tactical part of her brain for awhile and think about something entirely trivial, like what all the beautiful movie actresses looked like with beards and sideburns.

[Avenger Assembled]

The next morning, Mark and Marcie walked out of her dorm room together. Luckily Michelle hadn't come home all night, probably visiting her folks again, and they hadn't been caught out by the floor monitor. They'd both showered and put on clean clothes, Marcie going downstairs to launder Mark's, and looked as neat and pressed as both the Lucases did of a morning. Mark smelled rather like Marcie's shampoo, a not-at-all unpleasant sense memory. He took out his commlink and called up his fellow Young Freedomites as they went, heading first to the common room and then to the cafeteria for breakfast. "Hey, Young Freedom, this is Mark. I'm on my way to get breakfast before we talk to the Harcourts again."

[Gizmo]

Stifling a yawn, Trevor retrieved the squawking comlink from his belt and thumbed the button to reply. "We're on your way." He and Erin had spent the remained of the night on the couch watching talk shows and dated movies made considerably more entertaining by the reversals from the versions they were familiar with on Earth-Prime. Not wanting to get up to retrieve another cup of coffee, the lanky youth had dozed off once or twice, imminently comfortable. Cracking his neck and adjusting his fedora, he stretched and waited for Mark to arrive at the common room en route to the cafeteria.

[Electra]

Erin blinked and yawned from where she'd dozed off as well, once the novelty of opposite-gender celebrities had worn off. "Guess we didn't pop back in the night," she observed, smoothing her hair down with her hands. "Should be any time now, though. Where do you think Mark was all night, anyway?" She paused, her hands stilling, and thought about that. "Never mind. I don't think I wanna know. It's really time to go home."

Just then, Aaron stuck his head into the common room. He looked a little uncomfortable, but resolute. "Uh, hi. I wanted to say, if you guys need anything to eat, you can come to the caf with me. I mean, I'm sure they'll feed you anyway, but I can, um, explain for you if anyone wants to know who you are." He clearly wasn't wild about being there, but his protective instincts extended to making sure that their involuntary visitors didn't go hungry.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Hey guys!" said Mark, sticking his head in just behind Marcie.

For her part, Marcie gave a cordial smile to Aaron, hands folded primly in front of her. "Hi Aaron. You're looking better this morning." He'd taken quite a pounding the night before, but as usual the tonfa-wielding gladiator had shaken off the beating he'd taken at his counterparts' hands. Marcie herself was in a pink and white dress with flowers on it, looking every inch the spit and polish cheer captain.

Mark was looking about the same, for all that his good relations with his counterpart had not extended to the loan of a razor. Still, the Lucas boy wore the day's stubble in good spirits. He and Marcie both looked good, having evidently done the laundry over night. And relaxed. "Hey guys," said Mark, "Wanna see if Mr. Rhodes cooks any better than Ms. Rhodes? Never pass up a chance to eat food and use the bathroom, that's what they say!"

[Gizmo]

Tricia ducked her head in from the opposite side of the common room, hand holding her newsboy cap in place before she stepped inside. Dark jeans and grey tank top blended into her jacket, the white stripes on her elbow length fingerless gloves being the sole spot of brightness in her ensemble. She'd consciously left her sunglasses off again, but they hung ready from her pocket. "Were you here all night?" she asked, her voice carrying a note of distress. "Didn't want to bug you, but..."

Finishing his stretching, Trevor shook his head mildly. "Were fine. Alternate universe television; fun times." Waiting until everyone looked ready to move on, the dark haired young man started off toward the cafeteria, tipping his hat down a notch to cover some of his face, hoping to avoid too many questions from passersby along the way.

[Electra]

"Breakfast sounds good," Erin said, rising from the couch with a glance at her counterpart. She was glad not to have seen any more of him the night before, but it was also good to know that he would make sure that the strangers at the gate would have something to eat. She stretched, popping her cramped joints, sighed a little over her altered clothes, and headed out after Trevor. Aaron followed her with a nod of greeting to Tricia. Neither Wander seemed entirely eager to acknowledge Mark and Marcie for some reason. "The couch in the common room is pretty comfortable."

[Avenger Assembled]

Mark and Marcie were both notably subdued, though not looking particularly depressed about what had happened the night before, as they all walked over to the cafeteria. It was quiet, as usual, the kids who commuted in at the beginning of fall usually only coming in for lunch, and they had lots of space. That meant there wasn't a crowd, but it also made their unusual appearance all the more noticeable. Marcie chose to hide in plain sight, waving cheerfully to her friends in the crowd, and Mark smiled at her, reaching down to squeeze her hand in support as he waved too. The food certainly smelled good: he was hungry! "So did you guys see anything weird on the television?" he asked Wander and Midnight.

[Gizmo]

"Men as women, women as men," Trevor replied, spreading his hands mildly. "Novelty."

Hands folded behind her back, Tricia took advantage of their shared body language to give Trevor a significant look between him and Erin, one eyebrow arching above a black and red eye, he expression apprehensive.

Her visiting counterpart gave her a reassuring nod, and Tricia let out a sigh of relief in spite of herself. Raising an eyebrow of his own, Trevor placed his own hands behind his back and made a series of quick gestures, signing, We're not our parents. You know that, right?

Mouth curving with a hint of rueful smile Tricia unfolded her hands to reply, Obviously. Still. Don't like seeing couples fight.

Trevor tilted his head to one side in a shallow nod. Agreed.

[Electra]

Erin turned her head to notice the rapid-fire finger spelling between Trevor and his counterpart, but she only knew enough to recognize what it was, not to read the communication. For a moment she thought that maybe it would be a good idea to pick up some sign language beyond what was necessary to direct comrades in a fight, then she reconsidered. She wasn't sure it was a good idea to know what Trevor said behind her back, literally, without saying a word. Why would she want to know that stuff, anyway?

In the cafeteria, she went immediately up to the food line, in inadvertent near-lockstep with her counterpart. They both selected fresh fruit, buttered toast with jelly, orange juice and milk. Erin looked at the similarity, exchanged a glance with Aaron, and shrugged at the same time he did. They'd been through the same crucible, it only made sense that they would prefer the same sort of food afterwards. Carrying her tray, she walked back to sit down next to Trevor. "So what do we do now? Aren't we supposed to be going back now?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Well-" Mark and Marcie spoke at once, blushed, then Marcie nodded to let Mark talk. "I guess we're eating breakfast, then meeting with the Harcourts. I mean, our experience with traveling to other dimensions involves evil monsters and getting dumped into Nazi-dominated societies, not trying to get back from a nice Earth like this one." He and Marcie definitely glanced at each other there before he added, "Not, uh, that we want to stay, but it's weird to be in a place where everyone's so friendly. Maybe the League here will be able to solve the problem once they've got us all of us there, and our duplicates to help, just like what brought us here in the first place."

"If that was what brought you here," said Marcie with surprising perspicacity. "Something had to push you over the line to this dimension, right? And much as I'd like to think girl power did the trick," she added, twirling her fork neatly, "Aaron and Erin are evenly matched, and so are Mark and I. Powerwise, that is. So there must have been a reason you wound up here, and we didn't wind up there."

[Gizmo]

Pausing in the middle of picking up his dry toast, Trevor blinked, looking between Mark and Marcie. "That's... actually a good point. Huh." The lanky young man frowned, breakfast still in hand, as he considered what variable for which they had failed to account.

The look Tricia gave Marcie suggested that her world view had been seriously challenged, but she composed herself quickly. Unlike her counterpart, she was in the midst of spreading a dollop of marmalade over her bread, but had chosen bottled water over his glass of orange juice. "Could be what's keeping you here?"

[Electra]

"It might have been just a matter of timing," Erin guessed, putting her breakfast away neatly and quickly. "If the glowing light we saw on our end was your field coming online, we might have been seconds ahead of you in forming up a field, or whatever we were doing. Maybe the newer gate in the same place sort of took the place of the old one, so that when Mark did his thing with reality, we got thrown through that gate instead of you all getting thrown through ours."

"Or maybe something even smaller," Aaron added. "Marcie was standing well back from the gate when she started doing her thing. If Mark was too close, maybe he was at a disadvantage of leverage and got pulled through. And then maybe it was like tearing a piece of paper," he continued, picking up his napkin and poking a hole in it with his finger. "Once it's torn, all the torn pieces go inward, so its easier for things to go one way than the other, you know?"