ic Celebrating Liberty Through Meat and Explosions [IC]

[trollthumper]

"Yeah," Cannonade said, shaking his head. "I've learned a thing or two about tempting fate. But when something like that's just thrown out there, you can't really let it go unaddressed. Then again, guess we should stop talking about it now." He took another bite of his burger. Man, Trevor really knew how to put the whole thing together - he'd have to ask him for tips on spices and such if he ever decided to take another stab at the rusting grill at the family apartment. "So..."

Joe tripped over topics for discussion in his head. There was the possibility of expanding the League and looking at a "farm team" for other legacy heroes, like Silversmith up in Boston -- but the whole point of the day was to try to avoid the kind of stuff that'd come up at the Friday night intelligence briefings. He started thinking on that 4th with his family up in Boston, and was about to ask the others about past celebrations when he realized just what sort of family damage at least half the team had. He looked down into the depths of his soda, trying to dig something up.

"...how 'bout those Comets?"

[Gizmo]

"Just a salad, I think, Margery. I'm not feeling--" Travis began in response before abruptly catching himself and giving the auburn haired young woman in front of him a chagrined look of apology. "I'm sorry, Erin. My mind was elsewhere." It didn't sound like the elderly chemist had been genuinely confused, just distracted but the hereditary Hunter stoicism made his expression difficult to read. "Was about to say I'm not feeling up for anything heavy just now."

Trevor didn't look over while he spoke with Mark. "Well, mostly. Exceptional health, really, considering age." There was a slightly hesitancy to the younger Hunter's clipped phrasing. He didn't feel entirely comfortable talking about his grandfather with the man himself present even if there was little chance of him overhearing and it wasn't a particularly comfortable topic to begin with. "Helps to see the team active, I think. Good hands, so to speak." A little more loudly, he admitted to Joe, "Don't really follow sports. ...baseball, yes?"

[Electra]

"Sounds good," Erin told Travis, letting the slip in name pass by unremarked. Her own grandma hadn't been nearly Travis' age and she was still apt to run through all her children's names before remembering Erin or Megan's name. Just something about getting older, she guessed. She'd have liked to ask more about Margery, whose touch was everywhere in the house for all she was rarely ever mentioned, but it seemed like it might be a painful topic. She was the last person on earth to pry. "There's a big fruit salad, and I think that might be gazpacho there, or Trevor forgot to put noodles in his spaghetti. I made the jello salad, that's pretty good."

She pulled out the chair at the head of the table for him, then waved to the others who were still lingering by the grill. "Come on, we've got enough food for like twenty people. We'd better get started on it." With that, Erin sat down and began loading her plate with food, determined to do her part.

[Avenger Assembled]

Behind his own overloaded plate, covered in a variety of cheese and meat that would have made a state fair in Wisconsin jealous, Mark thought. This was an occasion for friends, but it was more than that too. "Here's to the start of a New Liberty League tradition," Edge suggested as he raised his glass of sparkling bubbly Dr. Pepper, cold and frosted against his fingers, "To everyone who's here with us today...and everyone who isn't." He didn't want to get more maudlin than that, so he instead klinked his glass against the others and began building his burger back up. "I was going to say I don't know where we'll all be next year...but I hope we'll all be here."

[trollthumper]

Following Mark's lead, Cannonade heaped his plate high with potato salad, grilled avocados, and other fruits of Trevor's kitchen before taking a seat. "Hear, hear," he said, raising his coke to toast against the others. "It's been great running with you guys; wouldn't trade it for anything. Hell, maybe we can hold this at my place next year."

The mention of where they'd be next year, coupled with who wasn't there, stirred up something that had been kicking at Cannonade's mind for a while. "I know I wasn't gonna talk shop here, but... well, figure it couldn't hurt to expand our net beyond Freedom. Maybe look to other heroes who have it as part of the family business. I know there's Silversmith up in Boston, for one. Not saying that we recruit, but if we're gonna be the guys tending the hearth, might be a good idea to keep an ear open among the other torchbearers." He took a bite of his burger. "If that even made sense."

[Gizmo]

"A good idea," Travis spoke up, punctuating the approval with a tap of his cane against the patio. "Communication... so much easier these days. Information, coordination, always been our advantage." Back in his day, detective work and preparation had meant a lot more legwork but it had meant the difference between success and defeat in more cases than not. The willingness of heroes to work together and pool resources unlike their villainous counterpart likewise had saved many a day.

"Silversmith?" Trevor asked simply, taking a bite out of his burger.

[trollthumper]

"She's a girl who says the name goes back a ways," Joe said, in between bites of potato salad. "From what I've dug up, it does. She's got some strength, some resilience - big thing is the ability to turn into silver, though. And when she does, she can shape metal like it's Play-Doh. Apparently her family's been doing it long before heroes were public. Her great-great-great-something-dad got splashed with some weird silver when he was apprenticing to a blacksmith, and came out of the deal with powers." He took a pause to draw in some breath - and well as some soda. "Apparently Boston has a few old legacies like that."

[Electra]

"I think it can't hurt to get some ties with heroes in other cities," Erin decided, digging into her meal with enthusiasm. "Even if it's just to get the word out more quickly when something big is starting to happen. We could maybe use one or two more people on the team, even, especially since we're all starting to do grown-up stuff now and have responsibilities. But I wouldn't want to go crazy with recruiting, a team that's too big isn't very efficient." She took a big bite of her burger, chewed it thoughtfully. "Good job," she told Trevor when her mouth was clear again. "It's great."

[Avenger Assembled]

"I agree," said Mark after a moment's thought, his face unusually serious. "The Liberty League has always been a family as well as a hero team, right back to the good old days. We should be open to keeping spaces open, but we should be selective too. We're about more than just getting talent together. The Liberty League name is about history; about coming together to save the world when there's no one else who can do the job." That was all something they had experience with, even if their traditional opponents had been rather graver than the Nazis. "And these are some damn fine burgers," he agreed to Trevor. "We should have you cook at all our meetings. Hey," he added, "is it weird if your girlfriend asks you if you've ever thought about being somebody's chief enforcer?"

[trollthumper]

"Yeah," said Cannonade. "I'll see if I can get some feelers out, see who might be interested in the whole arrangement. Good to have a network up and running if something big goes off." He took another bite of his burger, savoring the flavor as it sat on his tongue. "And man, you said it, Mark. This stuff is great. Hell, I'll see if I can put something together for the next big info session. Probably not gonna be fancy, but I learned a few things from my folks."

Mark's inquiry caught him slightly off-guard. This wasn't exactly the kind of relationship matter he was used to dealing with. "When we say 'enforcer,' we're talking 'chief muscle to the Ayatollah', right?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"It's just, I don't know," Mark admitted. "I can't tell if it's just her way of saying she's serious about me and wants to pursue our relationship, or if she actually does want me to help her lead a takeover of her family's kingdom. She's usually covering something up, which makes it hard to tell what she's actually saying." He sipped his soda and shook his head. "Anyway, I guess I've never really had a normal relationship, one way or another, so that's why I thought of you guys. I mean Joe, you seem to know what you're doing, and Erin and Trevor, you guys are great together! You're probably the best couple of anyone we went to school with." And certainly a lot better than even his own parents, though that wasn't something he could say out loud. "But never mind, that can wait till later."

[Electra]

"Tell her no," Erin suggested blandly, scooping up a bite of jello salad. "You don't want to end up being muscle for Typhoon, right? Saving his son's life is one thing, but he himself is still kind of crazy and extreme. And there's no point in dodging the question. If she's just dating you to try and feel you out-" She coughed and rephrased. "Trying to see if she can persuade you to work for her father, then it's better you know that now. If she really cares about you, then it shouldn't matter that you don't want to be a goon for her dad, right?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Yeah, yeah, I'll do that," said Mark, nodding as he picked up his hamburger and taking another bite. "I don't think she means anything by it, really, it's just how she relates to people." He still didn't look entirely happy, but instead he did his best to change the subject. "Anyhow, that's not important. What is important is questions of taking the team international," he went on, looking around at the others. "There are more legacies of the old days out there than you'd think, especially if you look at Europe and Asia. If we are going to say we stand for something about how things were back in the beginning for people like us, we might want to think about including them. Speaking of travel, how's the Night Cycle these days?"

[Gizmo]

Trevor blinked in surprise and pointed a finger at his face when Mark suggested that he and Erin had been the most successful of their peer group in that particular arena. After a moment of consideration, he wasn't sure he could actually disagree. "Huh." The dark haired young man suspected a congratulatory high five would be in poor taste. The mention of the wrecked motorcycle soured his expression anyway. "Vincent Black Shadow frame was ruined," he sighed, shoulders slumping a bit with the posture of a connoisseur relating the loss of a masterpiece. "Been rebuilding from scratch, though. My own specs, input from Redbird." That at least seemed to buoy his spirits. "She made an analogy to letting in tailored pants but... don't think she really understands how clothes work."

[Avenger Assembled]

"That's a shame, Trevor," said Mark sympathetically. "But I'm sure the rebuilt bike will be even better. You're a really awesome mechanic, and Redbird's a really awesome machine, and you've got a really awesome place here," he went on with full confidence in his friend's abilities as a master builder. Maybe Trevor wasn't building crazy space battlesuits and the like, but there was no denying just how talented the other young hero was. "Is she hanging out in the garage?" he added curiously. "Because if she wants to body up the place, I'm sure that'd be fine with everybody."

[Gizmo]

"She'll be around soon," Trevor assured Mark. "Finishing something while we eat." Redbird had been enthusiastic about the celebration on the whole, appreciating the sentiment of independence from tyranny even if she wasn't familiar with the historical context. The explanation of what was involved in a barbeque had received the sort of reaction one might have reserved for a proffered cup of jaguar blood, however; he wasn't sure of what the typical Furion diet consisted, but apparently it wasn't slabs of animal flesh seared on an outdoor gridiron. The autonomic intelligence had been carefully polite about it but it hadn't taken much convincing to get her to handle another portion of the preparations while he saw to the grills.

[trollthumper]

"Yeah, I'd say tell her you need to do your own thing," Joe said. He paused "Well, not in a way that makes it sound like you're breaking up with her. That'd be a bad idea. But tell her that you love her and you appreciate her, but you're not sure you're willing to dedicate yourself to a job like that. I'd say play up the uncertainty - 'Oh, I have no idea if I could pull it off' - but if she's the kind of girl who'll offer you a 'chief enforcer' job, that might not make it much better."

He smiled at the news that Redbird would be joining the group; he'd run into Midnight's talking motorcycle once or twice at the weekly briefings, and been fascinated by the stories of how she'd come to stay at the Manor. She was one of those fragments of the strange that just solidified for him what kind of world he'd stepped into - but that wasn't exactly a bad thing. "I'd be fine with that," he said.