Going the Distance (IC)

[Avenger Assembled]

October 14, 2011

Madden's was normally outside of Murdock's price range except for special occasions. He'd studied the marketing strategies of places like this while working at Champions (which had a very similar style, save they used superheroic garb rather than football and sports to distinguish themselves) and had a pretty good idea of why that was. The "family-friendly sports eatery" priced its huge meals and mighty appetizers with the idea that groups would eat there, and the ever-solitary Murdock had no such option. But this afternoon he had no such obstacles, and so he sat at a reserved booth, peering into the menu adorned with triumphant-looking sports figures, while he waited for his dinner companion to arrive. He had arrived early, as was his wont, and had luckily managed to secure a table far from the crowd near the big screen television. It helped that with his slightly off-putting presence and laconic manner, few people would want to sit near him if they could afford it otherwise. He was on his third glass of water.

[Electra]

Five minutes past the alloted time, just as he was contemplatng one more glass of water, his companion finally arrived. Erin White was in her street clothes today, and looking somewhat winded. "Sorry I'm late," she told him as she sat down. "Car accident at midtown, I stepped in before they had to bring out the jaws of life. Good part of not having much of a secret identity, I guess. Have you ordered yet?" she asked, picking up her own menu. The prices made her wince a little, but she could probably put this down as a business expense, so long as she made the sale.

[Avenger Assembled]

"No." Murdock paused, almost visibly sorting out what you were supposed to say in social situations. "I thought it would be more polite to wait until you had arrived." He studied the menu. "I have heard that the food here is of a good quality." Sure enough, the waitress came by almost immediately now that both of them were there, giving Erin just enough time to decide what she wanted. Harrier wound up ordering the appetizer sampler, splitting the difference between his desire not to impose on others financially and his desire to get a lot of food to eat.

[Electra]

Erin, who had been skimping on her meals lately, went all out for once and ordered a double cheeseburger combo with fried cheese sticks on the side. It wasn't going to break the bank, whatever happened. "Thanks for meeting me here, Murdock," she told her companion once the waitress moved off. "I know it's probably tough to get away. So, um, how've you been doing lately? It's been awhile since we worked together on anything."

[Avenger Assembled]

"I am well," replied Murdock in the same flat tone he'd have discussed a triumph or a disaster. "I was fortunate to retain my employment during my absence in the last month. I had feared that being on the evacuation list would anger my fellow workers." He had not actually gone to Sanctuary, but he wasn't comfortable discussing the former Omegadrones, and the battle in Antarctica, that had been his experience of the incursion of Cosmic Entity 31966. "I observed your encounter with the Asgardian entity on the news. Your team handled that incident with success." He stared at her, something clearly on his mind, indeed, one of the major reasons he'd agreed to the meeting at all, before he finally said, "Describe your battle with Omega to me. Please."

[Electra]

Erin paused with her water glass halfway to her lips. She set it down carefully on its coaster, then folded her hands. "I wasn't sure whether you'd heard about that one," she admitted. "We wound up keeping things pretty hush-hush, for all kinds of reasons." A humorless smile touched the edges of her lips. "Young Freedom does all its best work that way." She took a deep breath. "I don't know how much you've heard about the whole entire story around the fight. But the way it happened was that Omega set up a bunch of reality-destroying bombs across different universes. When all of the bombs detonated, they created kind of a vortex that sucked the multiverse into it, including Prime. We were able to escape because Edge's father had some advanced warning, just enough for Edge to protect us from the vortex long enough to get to safety."

Now she did pick up her glass and take a drink. "We were able to get intel that some, some reality-protecting wizards, I guess, had been gathering, and use it to stop the explosions before they happened. We traveled in time and across realities, different important places where bombs had been set. Each time, we managed to pull the plug. Till the last time, on the world I came from, we got there and found that they were expecting us. We fought a city full of Omegadrones just to get to the bomb in Freedom Hall. I broke my bat in half fighting my way through. When we got to the bomb, we found Physician Friendly waiting for us. He had some speech prepared or something, but I remembered what you told me about his nanite touch, I drove my bat through his skull before he could touch any of us, before he even knew who I was."

Erin was quiet for a moment, knowing the ex-drone would wait for her to finish. "We disabled the last bomb, went to leave. One of the Furions was with us, so we went outside to let him take off. And Omega was there, and the sky was gone. All drones. He... he shot something into the core of the earth, so that everything started falling apart. Everything was crazy. The drones were shooting at us, the ground was shaking, buildings were collapsing." She wrapped her fingers around the glass and stared into it. "There was nothing else to do, nowhere else to go, so we attacked him, all at once."

[Avenger Assembled]

Murdock closed his eyes for a moment, thinking about what she must have been seeing. "Yes. He would have intended to burn through to the planet's core and from there pull it and all else in that universe into the Coil. Omega can survive the destruction of a planet and the fires of the Coil. Few others can." He was silent, thinking about all the heroic last stands, the final last-ditch charges by rag-tag teams of champions, that he had seen brutally and hopelessly defeated. That he himself had helped defeat. But that hadn't happened this time. "And you destroyed his corporeal form with the cosmic channeling rods from the Warper Bombs?" asked Murdock intently, hands steepled in front of his face as he studied her. "Yes. Yes, those would have destroyed his ability to manifest. He would have been forcibly expelled from that reality and all others. And it would have kept him from rallying to destroy all of you." He was silent for a moment, and then, almost unhappily, "It is likely he will be able to recover."

[Electra]

Erin sighed. "Yes, I know. Nobody can destroy entropy, just slow it down. But when I got his armor off him, and Midnight shot him with the control rods, he blew up really thoughly. We took some of his armor too, so maybe between all of that, we'll have given him something to think really hard about for a few generations." She released her hold on the glass, folded her hands again. "In any case, Rick Lucas took my home universe and all the Terminus-infested buildings, all the Omegadrones, and pulled it with him into the Zero Zone. It's all gone, and with it, one of Omega's big strongholds for trying to get through to Prime. It has to mean something."

[Avenger Assembled]

He stared at her. "Do...do you think it means nothing?" he asked, something like hastily suppressed shock on his face as he tried to avoid attracting attention. "Erin, do you know all the suffering you and your allies ended that day? By destroying the Physician alone, you saved tens of millions from a thousand torments you cannot possibly imagine: even if his Nightmare Nurses should pull him from the Rebirthing Vaults again, he will be occupied with rebuilding his position and not with maintaining his Hospice, and even reconstituting him for that will take time, every instant of which will be another prisoner freed. And with Omega's body destroyed and his armor gone, his lieutenants will have to wait for his return rather than simply summoning him again. They will fight amongst themselves at that, cosmic jackals that they are, and their wars against each other will mean that the nest of virus-vultures that is the Terminus will be consuming itself rather than consuming uncounted billions of lives." He fell silent, looking a little embarrassed for his outburst, then added, "The news will have been spread on Nihilor, as it was after your Centurion's defeat of Omega twenty years ago. You and yours will have brought joy to the Black Ghetto of Nihilor, Erin White. Few beings can claim such an honor."

[Electra]

Erin thought about that for a moment. "I guess I hadn't really considered that so much," she admitted. "I mean, we came back here and the Freedom League didn't even believe us, so it didn't seem like it could be as big a thing as it felt like." She blew out a breath. "But you're right. Even a setback is good, even getting rid of Omega and his henchman for a year, even for a month, that's time where they aren't hurting anybody else. And we stopped his plan to destroy all of reality. We did what we had to, what we were meant to. And next time it'll be up to someone else." For a moment, she looked very sad, even lost, but the waitress came up with their food and she pushed all that aside.

[Avenger Assembled]

Murdock missed the implication of her response, delighted as he was to have both the food and at the images in his mind. Yes, whatever had befallen the Terminus, the absence of Omega and the Physician was a positive good. Indeed, the distraction that must have imposed on Steelgrave and the others who commanded the swarms of drones made it far more likely that Mona Teymourian had (for the moment) survived her incursion there. "This is a good day. And a good year for all life," he said decisively. "I would have sought you out before the cosmic incursion this month, but I was occupied. My...nature meant I could only be in certain places as the fatal day came." He studied Erin, then said, "I am grateful for the chance to discuss that with you. But it is not why you called me here."

[Electra]

"No, it isn't," Erin agreed, "though I did kind of want to talk with you about it. And also to thank you." She picked up one of her cheese sticks and swirled it in marinara sauce, but her eyes were on him. "When you took me on the holographic tour of the Terminus, told me what we'd be facing, it was hard on both of us, but I think it was worse for you. It's hell to have to go back to a place you barely got away from and can't forget." She spoke with the certainty of experience there. "But the advice you gave me, and the warnings, and the mental prep, all of it helped. I'm not sure things would've turned out the way they had if not for you. So thanks."

[Avenger Assembled]

Unbidden, Murdock's mind went back to his conversation with Fulcrum, and how differently she had understood the talk that he had given to Wander. "To gaze into the Terminus is to gaze into the face of Death, terrible and ever-lasting. Even those who have survived many Earthly horrors can rarely comprehend it. I can describe Nihilor to anyone. I have done so again and again, for heroes and scholars interested in what lies inside the Terminus. But there are few who could hear my words and understand them, as you did. To stand with you, even when I was not there, is...good." He nodded at that, seeming satisfied with what he'd said. That she was so much younger than he was was no issue: the fires of the Terminus had forged them both into what they were. "The work continues. I have been engaged," he confessed, "in the education of a small group of young people who were taken and altered as I was. The League has been educating them at their polar base, but I believe they will be free to leave there in a few years. They are regaining the lives that were taken from them. Your former classmate Prometheus is among them."

[Electra]

"That's good, I'd wondered where he would go after Claremont. I'm glad he's in a program that will help him." Erin pursed her lips, feeling of two minds about that bit of news. "But if you're busy with this project, then the thing I wanted to ask you about may be nothing anyway. See, I've been hired on as the head of security for Dragonfly's new company. She's got a nice facility, opening up in a couple of weeks now, and she gave me some authority over hiring my team. I wanted to see if you're interested in a job. You'd have to do up an application and an interview with her and stuff, but I know you're trustworthy and someone I'd want at my back in a fight. I wasn't sure if you were looking for something new."

[Avenger Assembled]

"A job? As a guard?" Murdock cocked his head, looking curiously at Wander. "I am familiar with Dragonfly. She is a colleague of a friend of mine. She is aware even of my true nature. She is unlikely to work with me in a desire to learn about the technology of the Terminus." He blinked. "I was not aware she thought it likely she would face significant superhuman opposition." He was silent for a moment. "I have enjoyed my months at Champions. I have done honest work and worked alongside other free men and women. But I have recently begun to understand that it was a step on the road of my life, not an end to its journey. What rewards would there be for this work?"

[Electra]

"You get a solid hourly wage, probably a lot better than what you get bussing tables," Erin began. "A benefits package with health insurance, retirement stuff, paid vacation, all that. Forty hours a week, paid overtime and training. Guaranteed one whole weekend off per month, two days off per week. You and I will probably be the only metahumans on staff, and you'd need to make sure to use your knight thing whenever you did hero stuff." She picked up a french fry off her plate. "Dragonfly will probably want you to help with testing some Terminus-energy-proof tech. Partially in case it's needed in an invasion, but mostly so that her sensitive experiments don't get messed up if you or anyone else with that energy signature gets too close." She dipped her fry in ketchup, ate it. "What do you think?"

[Avenger Assembled]

Murdock listened carefully, comparing what Erin was saying to what he had heard from his various life skills classes taught through the Freedom League. "That would mean considerably more time and income than I have now. The work sounds rewarding." He ate even as he spoke, obviously not one to miss a scrap of food. For a moment, she thought he wasn't going to say anything else before he added, "Yes. I will accept the work that you have offered me. With the permission, of course, of your employer. I would like to be hired by her for my own abilities."

[Electra]

"Well yeah, it's not like a charity thing, or like she'd hire you just on my say-so," Erin agreed with a shrug, attacking her own food as well. She knew the importance of gettng a job on one's own merits. "But I've seen what you can do, and she'll see what you can do, and hell, anybody would want that on their security team. I figure there was a reason the League got you busing tables to start with, to let you get used to living on earth and doing something totally non-violent for a living, but your talents are being wasted at Champions. You'll do a lot better with us." Satisfied, she bit into her cheeseburger.

[Avenger Assembled]

Murdock had nothing to add now that they'd 'sealed the deal,' he was not one to make promises for the future when they were not requested, nor was he one to praise himself and his deeds. If it was necessary for him to understand the work beyond its utility for defeating any further incursions by the Terminus, he would be told as much. He was curious why Wander had not hired any of her former allies, but he supposed he would learn that fact with time. "It has been a very busy summer," he finally commented when their meal was nearly done. "I hope that we shall have more peaceful times now."

[Electra]

"You and me both," Erin said with a sigh. "I mean, you know what you're getting into, sort of, when you decide to live in Freedom City. It's the biggest city for superheroes and supervillains and cosmic disasters in the world. But even when you account for that, this summer was a hell of a mess. And the fall hasn't been much better. Honestly, after going to school at Claremont, I love the idea of dressing in a security uniform and guarding one building, and I'm glad I didn't get on the Freedom League." There was a trace of defiance in her voice that tended to belie the words, but who was counting? "Getting paid well to stop street-level crime sounds pretty good."

[Avenger Assembled]

They talked for some time about the perspective of street-level crime in Freedom City, something with which Murdock had a great deal of experience. "I do not avoid other people with powers, but I find not having to...explain myself makes things easier." When the talk was done, and the food too, they headed outside, Harrier not raising a single complaint as Wander paid the balance of the bill, though he did make sure to leave some worn ones of his own for the tip, carefully sliding them under the plate when he was sure only Erin was looking. "To make sure it goes to someone who deserves it," he explained as they walked outside. "Thank you for the meal, Erin. It was appreciated. As is the offer of employment. None have done so before."

[Electra]

Erin shrugged, looking just a little uncomfortable. "It's not much of a favor," she told him. "I have to find some good people for the job, and you're one of them. Anyway, everybody should be able to make a living doing something they're good at. I'll drop a line to Dragonfly and you send in your resume. Training starts November first, so make sure to get on it right away. You good to get home and everything?" she asked him. Erin was taking her truck more places these days, it sat parked by the restaurant, looking shiny and clean.

[Avenger Assembled]

"I prefer to walk," said Murdock with a gentle shake of his head in reply to Erin's offer. "Especially now." He took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of a living, breathing industrial city. "The city pulses with life, and the people with happiness in their freedom and their salvation. It is a good day." He shook her hand to seal the deal, his grip still strangely weighted, flesh fastened over the Terminus steel underneath, and then headed off down the street with his head held high. Omega's defeat and the changes in his own life, and the salvation of all mankind, had left the former Omegadrone feeling, for once in his life, happy.