ic Where They Have To Take You In

[Gizmo]

"Nobody's dressing like Patriot," Trevor vetoed in his usual quiet but firm tones from his seat. No one really had to point out that decision making by coin flip was somewhat less random around Mark. Setting down his cup for a moment, the dark haired man considered. "Except maybe Joe. Could probably make that work." He put a comforting hand on Erin's shoulder when she brought up the reaction to their report directly following their Claremont graduation ceremony. The skepticism had never bothered him as much as it had her but then he'd inherited a reputation to begin with and hadn't had to suffer through a denied application to the Freedom League.

Looking back over to Alex and Mike, he shrugged subtly. "Liberty League was opposed to bigotry," he reminded them, picking his mug back up with his free hand and giving the couple a significant look over the rim as he took another sip. "More than happy to slap certain faces."

[angrydurf]

Mike nodded agreement with Alex as she found of course a more eloquent way to phrase his concerns quieted by her gesture and smiling down at her fondly.  His smile was wide for Erins frank appraisal of exactly where people of those opinions could shove them having missed in a way her brutal honesty though he was glad it was for the moment aimed not at him.  "That isn't necessary."  he answered her offer however, "Like Alex said I probably don't need work financially."  he explained, "And I wouldn't want you to have to pull strings just so I don't get bored."  he joked lightly.

'uhm..." Mike started to prevaricate as Mark of course swept aside their concerns to address the far more pressing matter of proper costume design.  He knew the outcome would be less random and more what Mark wanted though that was random in its own way he supposed.  He was about to just tell Mark to pick and he'd go along when cooler heads prevailed and nixed the patriotic theme.  At Trevors vote of confidence he nodded happily, "Thanks all of you."  he said firmly, "I should have known better than to doubt the offer."  he said and glanced to Alex before looking back to their friends, "Should you confer with, uhm, joe was it?"  he asked, "Before exteding such an offer?"  he clarified, "I mean working with you was where I've done my best.  So I'm on board but I don't want anyone to feel like we're muscling in because of our history you know?" 

[alderwitch]

"It'll end up on its edge and everyone will have to change costumes," Alex teased Mark even as Trevor nipped the idea in the bud. She gave Mike's arm one more gentle pat and then returned her attention to her coffee, nodding her head once with her fiance's statement on the matter, "Of course, we're here for whatever you might need regardless. If you want us on the team, we're they're in a heartbeat. But as Mike says," she gave a little twirl of her fingers to indicate her agreement about not wanting to off-set their other teammate. "If you want to ask Joe and Nina first, we totally understand."

Alex turned her small smile on Trevor then at his understated but equally emphatic opinion on the matter, "Thank you." Before her gaze moved over to Erin and Mark, "You've always been the best of friends."

She took a delicate sip of her coffee then, curling her hands around its warmth. "I'm not wearing my old uniform. I've hit the threshold of age where I don't think a cheerleader's skirt is going to cut it anymore. Plus it gets cold."

[Avenger Assembled]

"Aw, we can reclaim those colors," offered Mark, but he didn't press the subject past Trevor's dislike of the idea. He's probably worried I'd try and change his costume too! A sensible worry - Trevor had worked hard for his look. "Well, I know some people in fashion," he offered Alex, "I could get you and Mike set up with some consultants. I've actually made a couple of sketches myself of different looks for you guys," he admitted to Mike and Alex. "My mom helped out, so they're professional-quality." He sipped his coffee. "And Nina actually likes you guys! She talks about AEON a lot; how you're using your superpowers for economic and cultural power, and that's something she thinks makes a lot of sense, what with..." He waved his hand. "But, uh, I've told her she's wrong about the private army thing, so don't worry about that!" 

[Electra]

"Or you could talk to Frank," Erin offered, after a glance at Trevor. "He designed my uniform, and he's been making Trevor's outfits for years. I'm sure he'd be happy for the opportunity to design a few more super-suits." She grinned. "He does have some really definite ideas about what people ougtht to be wearing, but usually it's possible to reach some kind of compromise. And you could always hit it with a Bedazzler after you get it," she offered to Alex. "You just have to use, you know, stealthy sparkles." She drained her water, then went back to the fridge and started perusing its contents. "We need to go grocery shopping again," she decided. "We can order in. You guys feeling like pizza, Chinese, Thai, sandwiches?" 

[Gizmo]

"I'll call Joe." Trevor rose from his seat and moved over to the far corner of the kitchen to use his phone. He was content to let the others hash out what sort of food to order; he didn't have a particularly strong preference to begin with and Erin would make sure nothing genuinely objectionable made it onto the ballot. Scrolling to the civilian number he had for Joe rather than the emergency contact protocols they used for actual League business he brought the phone to his ear as it started to ring. "Hey," he greeted as the steelworker picked up. Even without caller ID there didn't seem much need to clarify who was calling. "Social thing at manor. Available?"

[trollthumper]

Joe had just been getting ready to go on patrol when the phone came in. "Sure, I'll be over soon." He was fine with putting the patrol on hold for social purposes. Though he was definitely keeping the costume on; it'd make commuting a lot easier. He knew Mark would be happy to teleport in and teleport back, but he liked having some time to get the rooftops under his feet. And he'd gotten into the Manor enough times to know the right darkened patches to touch down in. 

Once he touched down and entered, he slipped his helmet off, sure that anyone watching was meant to see. He waved to the group. "Hey, guys," he said. He look over to the two unfamiliar faces - well, not entirely unfamiliar. He was able to place them to stories, and old news articles, and Mark's slideshows...

"You must be Mike and Alex," he said. "The others had a lot of great things to say about ya." He extended his hand to each of them, tucking his helmet under the other arm. "I'm Joe. Cannonade, to the world. Pleasure to meet you both."

[angrydurf]

Mike smiled down at Alex, "I kinda like it."  he teased lightly which was racy flirting from the gentle giant really.  He cocked his head to the side vexed for a moment as the overwhelming push of Marks ideas were slowly picked apart int he back of his mind, "Why would they think we're siblings we look nothing alike?"  he asked as the reasoning for the discussion finally clicked he looked to Trevor and erin then finally Alex uncertain if he was missing hte obvious or what, "Not that I'm not willing to work out something new just."  he shrugged, "Costumes are hard."

He left it at that as the much more important task of deciding on food was upon them and his stomach fed only booze was demanding more, "Uhm All that sounds good to me."  he said easily with a shrug then quirked a brow, "Frank?"

But by the time he'd moved on from food to that the other teammate had arrived and he took the mans hand if a gentle grip, "Mike, yea."  he confirmed and glanced at the helmet trying to place it but not being able to sift it from all the posters mark had rotated through their room.  "Pleasure to meet you s-"  he managed to cut of the sir which he had a feeling the man only a few years his senior would not necessarily not take as the honorific it would be intended as, "Soooo,"  he covered poorly, "uh, -"  then his head snapped to Mark, "Wait Private Army?"

[alderwitch]

"I'd like to see your designs, Mark, they always had a real homage to the classics, you know? And, no. No private army, I'm afraid. Well. Not afraid. An army would be super bad. She can come by sometime to see AEON, if she likes. I'd be happy to show you around. Maybe if the designs work, we can take that to Frank for inspiration?" Her voice lilted up, turning the statements into questions and the topics beginning to merge together as caffeine and natural exuberance combined. Normally, Alex held herself back but anyone who'd had her telepathically chattering at them was well aware how fast she could get going once started. She smiled then, and offered, "Oh! Chinese! I haven't had good Chinese in ages and then we can get a bunch of stuff. I can give you my credit card if you want to put it all on there."

Alex made the offer to pay for things before turning to grin up at Mike and his comment about the skirt, "I still HAVE it, but I'll save it for special occasions," she teased him before turning a brilliant smile on the newest arrival, undaunted by Mike's disconcerted reaction at Mark as she offered her hand, "Hi, Joe. It's really nice to meet you. Chinese food okay with you?"

[Electra]

"Frank designed Trevor and my costumes, and pretty much any formal thing either of us has ever worn," Erin explained to Mike. "He's totally impossible to deal with, really strong opinions about everything, and really likes trying to show off my shoulders. But he's pretty impossible not to like. He can make you something that makes you look good," she assured him. "And the private army thing is just Nina being Nina. She likes to think in terms of wars and government overthrow and stuff. You get used to it." 

As Joe came in, Erin grabbed a pencil and paper and began making a list of Chinese food dishes to order. "Hey Joe, nice to see you. All right, got egg rolls, crab rangoons, fried rice, the beef on a stick thing I don't remember the name of, sweet and sour chicken... what entrees do people want?" 

[trollthumper]

"Orange chicken's always good for me," said Joe. "Either that, or Mongolian beef. I could do salt and pepper fish, at an outside straight." He looked to Mike and Alex, and realized that Mike seemed to be scrutinizing his helmet. If he recognized it, he wasn't saying, but Joe wouldn't be surprised if he didn't. But... tonight wasn't the night for tooting his own horn. He was in the middle of something that went back longer than he'd been in the League, and he could feel that making this about him would be a crappy proposition. Besides - he wanted to know more about these two.

 

"AEON, huh?" he said. "Knew the face was familiar. It's great to see a use for our talents beyond punching assholes in the face. I mean, there's nothing wrong with punching assholes in the face, but it's good to know we can use this stuff to actually build things up."

[angrydurf]

Mike was distracted from the helms vague familiarity and any concerns about a private army by the prospect of food and his stomach let out a quiet gurgle of protest at only absurd levels of alcohol and barnuts to feed it this afternoon, "Oh Kung-, no had enough peanuts at the bar, uhm beef and broccoli?" He suggested glancing around unsure how communal a thing it was family style was always hard like that.  Mike smiled proudly at the recognition of Alexs achievements then frowned at the course language those close to him recognizing a thoroughly mild chastising on the way as he opened his mouth, "Lan-" he stopped and looked to Alex for a long moment before nodding apparently arrested in his scolding by the more politic of the pair.  He blushed slightly and shrugged, "Ah, yea, they do some amazing stuff for the community."  he agreed recovering quickly by Mike standards, "So."  the big man stalled gathering his thoughts, "You're working with Mark, Trevor and Erin on the new Liberty League?"  he glanced to Mark and Trevor as he wasn't certain if it was New or not in the name and shrugged, "Or Liberty League."  he smiled, "I always let Mark and Alex do the talking back in the day for a reason."  he confided surprising no one.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Wait a minute," said Mark, looking at Mike. "Hang on, is your email address not still..." He rattled off the email address that Mike had used back in high school, before Alex had talked him into getting a more professional-sounding one. "You haven't seen my emails?! With my newsletter, and my digest-sized accounts of our adventures?" Mark looked crestfallen. "Well no wonder you never emailed me back!" He coughed. "Anyway, we're the Liberty League. The last one saved the world - then had to disband because the people in charge didn't trust them. This was right after Graduation Day, so it made sense." He blinked. "You did get my email about that, right? With the pictures, and the story I wrote?" 

[alderwitch]

"I told you that people weren't going to know you'd switched emails if you didn't update them all," came Alex's friendly 'I told you so' tone that was familiar to the majority of the people in the room. "It's alright, Mark, I saved them all. I'll forward them along to Mike now that he's back in the swing of things, so to speak. He'll catch up."

Turning her sunny smile back on Joe, she beamed at him, "Thank you so much, Joe. I'm really proud of what we've started to accomplish although, really, AEON wouldn't exist without Mark and Erin. They both helped out when it was just a brief idea when we were kids. I'm just hoping I can use it to really give back to the community. I think we're only going to see more meta-humans as the years go on and eventually the systems we have in place will be strained. Hopefully we can make sure that doesn't come to pass. It's great being located in Freedom City because there are other companies with similar mindsets. I always think that it makes you sharper to see what other people are doing. No one can do everything alone and with ArcheTech and Hax, there's lots of different eyes looking at similar problems."

[Gizmo]

"Anything works," Trevor assured Erin, more for the peace of mind of their guests than to clarifying his order with her; she already knew he didn't give his eating habits enough thought to have a strong preference. Stopping by the refrigerator he retrieved a bottle of cider and passed it to Joe on his way back to taking a seat at the table. He winced very slightly at Mark's distress over Mike's e-mail situation, hiding the gesture with a sip of coffee. The retelling of adventures and mission was important enough to the gregarious UNISON worker that Trevor made a point of reading each of his newsletters as they arrived in his inbox just in case they came up in conversation. Well. Skimmed them at least. "Can tell him in person, then," he suggested in a calm deadpan.

[Electra]

Erin busied herself with her phone, typing in the large order for delivery, then perched on the counter near the kitchen table. "That's probably a good idea," she told Mark, her face as deadpan as Trevor's. "Mike's going to need to know everthing about the team if he's going to join it. Which is one thing we wanted to talk to you about, Joe," she added. "How would you feel about Mike and Alex joining up with the League? They'd round out our lineup, and they're good people. You can give it some thought if you want." 

[trollthumper]

Joe popped the top of the cider with a flick of his thumb - he'd mastered the fine control to crack the caps without shattering the bottle (well, most bottles - for some reason, Yuengling tended to result in a shower of glass and beer). "Yeah, I'm on the League," he said in response to Alex. "Joined up with them shortly after the - yeah, what Mark said. There was this thing with Nazis from another dimension and... well, it sorta built from there." He'd decided to cut off the bit where the Nazis had in part been trying to get revenge on typhoon - that was years and a rather more positive father-daughter relationship ago. 

When Erin brought up the possibility of Alex and Mike joining the team, Joe took a long sip of his cider. He knew he was something of the odd one out on the team. He hadn't been there at the start. He wasn't one of the school graduates. But... he also really didn't mind it that much. It was just part of the whole deal. And he didn't see a need to make a deal about it. "You vouch for 'em," he said, "then I think they'd be a good fit." 

[angrydurf]

Mike blinked and shook his head, "Uhm I don't think we were allowed to keep our school e-mail?"  he asked curiously looking to Alex for confirmation and shrugged, "Anyway it was set up to forward everything I think."  he opined and smiled to mark nodding, "I've gotten your e-mails I just wasn't sure if you were shortening it in them or what, the newspapers sometimes say new liberty league is all."  he scratched his head feeling a bit on the spot and looked to trevor with a quirked brow not certain why the flat affect seemed amused at the idea of listening to Marks stories in person, "I mean you're a great storyteller if you want to tell me in person sometime."  he shrugged as he had always like Marks stories.  One did not get through that many years rooming together without being tolerant of such quirks.

He turned hopefully to Joe as the question of the hour was broached and beamed when he seemed to approve.  He looked forward to working with his friends again and Cannonade seemed a stand up guy too.  He glanced to Alex with a pleased nod and stuck a big arm over her shoulder to give her a gentle squeeze, "Thank you for your confidence."  he said earnestly.

[Electra]

"Well then, I think it's settled," Erin said with a grin. "Alex and Mike will get themselves some new costumes, and we'll be good to go. Hey Alex," she asked suddenly, "is your grandma's place back in mothballs now, or are you still using it? We got it fixed up pretty nice back in school. It could be useful for something, even if we keep headquartering here. Oh," she added, turning back to Joe, "Trevor and I are getting married. I think that brings everybody totally up to speed now." 

[alderwitch]

"Caldwell took a few major hits in the last big disaster, unfortunately, so it would take some serious work to get it up and running these days. If we need a place other than Trevor's family home, though AEON's equipped to do everything the old manor did and more and you're all welcome to make use of it. I even moved the teleporters over from Caldwell to AEON that we used to use. Since we deal with metahumans needing help with their powersets, we have everything from simulator rooms to nullification chambers along with more traditional amenities like apartments, the gym and the pool. You're all welcome to it. Mark and Mike already have access badges waiting down at the front desk and I can have my personal assistant set up cards for Joe, Trevor and Nina tomorrow." Alex volunteered cheerfully as she reached up to give Mike's arm a gentle pat. Her amused gaze cut back to Mark then as she added, "Although Nina may be disappointed at the lack of personal army. The rest is very nice, though."