nextgenerationmarvel | Doing Things the Hard Way (Open to Avengers)

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Doing Things the Hard Way (Open to Avengers)

This scene takes place three days after this scene.

Tommy's bike pulled up out front of Avengers' Mansion at 8 am, giving him what he hoped was enough time to find his target and speak to her so that he could locate Joe before nightfall. He could be at the bar, hoping that Texas Marion might show up again but he didn't think he was quite that lucky. He could even be sleeping in his hotel room, but he needed to see his old friend. Tommy dismounted his bike and looked up at the fence that separated the mansion from the outside world. These people probably had no idea what it meant to go hungry, to want for something they couldn't have. Joe seemed more grounded than most, but he was still the kid of one of one of the biggest badasses of all time.

Tommy didn't hate the Avengers but he was very sure that they had no clue what was really going on the world. They punched out the "A-List" bad guys and came back to this place for fun. Rather than knock on the door, Tommy had a better idea on how to get what he wanted: stick out like a sore thumb and wait for them to come to him. With any luck, he'd get the person he was looking for in short order.

So Tommy pulled out a cigarette, lit it and stared at the front door as several of the passerby noted the grungy looking biker out front of the mansion. Eventually, someone inside would get the message.

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"You guys got a Hulk?" Tommy asked. "I think maybe he's the lucky one, in truth."

"Look, I know how you yanks think of us southerners. We're uneducated, dirty and we sleep with our sisters. For our part, we think you've got sticks up your asses where your backbones should go. Now that we've got that square, I'm not workin' any angle, Roxie." he said.

"If I was, you wouldn't be suspicious of it." he said. "Now why don't we start with the questions? First one is mine. What time is sundown today?" he asked her.

"For a grungy biker boy, you sound awfully sure of yourself," Roxie replied. Granted, Joe had said something about Tommy becoming...something...but he hadn't really elaborated, and at the moment, Roxie disliked the fact that she hadn't thought to ask what that might have been.

"I don't judge people based on where they come from," Roxie added. "That's not the sort of woman I am. I'm just judging you on the fact that you disappeared, and your disappearance hurt someone who I ca - someone who I've known for a good deal of time." The elevators dinged open and Roxie strode out, walking towards the bar and restaurant. "Sundown is around six." Pause. "Why?" She whirled around. "You're not a werewolf, are you?" Gods help her, because she didn't have any silver on her.

"Mama always said that ladies love confidence." Tommy said, flashing a smile. He followed her out of the elevator, watching her backside as she walked. Joe did, in fact, know how to pick them.

He nodded as she gave him the time for sundown. "Trying to spare you some unpleasantness. And no, I'm not a werewolf. Your luck isn't that good, Roxie." he said, looking around for a table.

He found one and went to it, pulling out Roxie's chair for her.

"Shall we sit down?"

She watched him for a moment before taking a seat in the chair. She waited for him to sit down and then waved over one of the waiters who she was familiar with - an NYU film school student named Aaron. She'd done some work for one of his film projects before, in her wilder, blonder days.

She ordered a gimlet, to be put on her tab, and instructed that Aaron put whatever her companion for the evening ordered on the tab as well.

And no, Aaron shouldn't alert the front desk to have a room ready for her. It wasn't that sort of visit, thank you very much.

She turned back to Tommy after he ordered and then said, "Then tell me, Tommy, what's my luck like?"

Tommy noted that Aaron felt guilty about something. He didn't know what, only that he did. So did the older gentleman in the far corner talking to the girl half his age. And the woman who was drinking the martini at the bar.

So many sinners, so little time. said the voice in his head.

Tommy shook his head as though he were clearing it and looked at Roxie.

"Back before you changed the hair color...I think your luck was just the way you wanted it. You did what you wanted, when you wanted and who you wanted and didn't feel bad about it." Tommy said. "I daresay you probably even enjoyed it.

Then somethin' happened. Or someone. And now you've got this cloud hangin' over your head that you don't know how to get out from under. You think you've found the silver linin' but...you're scared senseless. All the amazin' stuff you can do, and you're not sure if you can handle whatever it is that's starin' you down." Tommy said.

Normally, he'd follow his psychoanalysis up with an offer of a roll in the hay but he didn't think that would be taken too well here.

"But I sense that ain't what you really wanna know. So stop sandbaggin' and ask me what you wanna know. Is it about Joe? Do you wanna know what he did when he wasn't pinin' for you?"

"Fair enough," Roxie countered. "You have me pinned down. Big deal. As a superhero and a party girl, I get written about, blogged about, a lot. It's nothing that wasn't easy to piece together, thanks to the Daily Bugle and other places." She leaned back in her chair and crossed one leg over the other, the heel of her stiletto grazing Tommy's own leg.

"Joe's past is his business. He's told me what he feels comfortable telling me, and I'm more than fine with that." Which was the truth. They all had their own baggage, and not all of it needed to be unpacked immediately.

"But I do want to know what happened between the two of you."

"With all due respect, Roxie, not the way I'd like to." he said, in regard to her comment about having her pinned down. "Granted, I think they make too much of how you choose to live your life. It's your life. Enjoy it and don't let anyone stop you."

He noted her stiletto grazing his leg and reminded himself to beware. She was strong enough to do damage if she wanted and he wasn't transformed right now.

"Quite simply, Joe Rogers saved my life after I crawled out of my own grave. Literally." Tommy said. "Sadly, he didn't quite understand the repercussions of that act. But I think you'd agree that he's too good of a man to let someone suffer when he can help." Tommy said.

"We traveled together for awhile. I know what it looks like when someone is runnin' from somethin' and boy was he runnin'. He worked for my old man for awhile, before he knew what the guy really did for a living." Tommy said.

"And I may not have been completely honest with him about my home life." he said.

"What's with the dark hair? The blonde hair suited you more."

Roxie glared at Tommy for that first comment. "Sometimes karma catches up with you," she said. "Every action has a consequence. Mine finally caught up with me."

She studied Tommy for a long moment. "You were dead?" It was a simple enough question. There were many in their world who had died and come back. It wasn't exactly out of the ordinary. "Because I don't get vampire from you, either."

Another short stretch of silence before she asked, "So what was your home life like?"

"I needed a change. It's a woman's prerogative to change her look up every once in awhile." She'd go back to being blonde someday.

She just didn't know when.

"Yeah, I know karma. She and I talk regularly." Tommy said with knowing nod. "She caught up with me a few years ago and some people I called family beat me to death, shot me and buried me in an unmarked grave." Tommy said.

"I'm no vampire. I'm as human as you can get before the supernatural gets involved." Tommy said.

"My family was simple. I had a really good dad, who died. My mother and stepdad killed him. So I...dealt with them. That was what I misled Joe about." Tommy said.

"I found some things in my parents' stuff that said I was adopted. They didn't know who and neither do I." Tommy said.

"What's your home life like?" he asked.

Before the supernatural gets involved. Those words echoed in Roxie's mind. There was a story here.

But what was it?

"I wouldn't really call it a home life," Roxie said after a long moment. "I grew up in Avengers Mansion. Mom was single - she and my dad got together because of a spell cast by Amora that made the Avengers go lust-crazy one night. Somehow, I was the only one to come out of all of the couplings that night." Fate, perhaps. "Dad and I are as close as can be, though he tends to be a bit protective of me. Perhaps because of the fate that befell some of his other daughters," she shrugged. "I never grew up in that nuclear family type deal, but my parents and my older brother love me, and that's more than enough."

"So what's this supernatural business that gets involved in your life?"

Tommy nodded. He didn't know who Dad was, but he'd already marked out Captain America. Joe wouldn't have pined over her if she was his sister.

But being born because someone cast a spell on your parents? That sounded awkward.

"I don't think you wanna know the answer to that. Even if you did, it's not the kind of story told lightly." Tommy said.

"I like knowing the answer to everything," Roxie replied. "If I didn't, I wouldn't ask the questions. Besides, my dad's the god of war. I can handle dark just fine."

"Ah, one of /those/." Tommy said.

"You think you wanna know, but you really don't. I'll put it this way, though...when karma catches up with bad people, I'm the person she sends to settle the debt." Tommy said.

"If you're planning on sticking around, Tommy - and I get the feeling that you are? - then you might want to stop beating around the bush and spill the beans. Chances are, we might run into each other one night, and if I don't know the whole story, things might turn a whole lot less pleasant for you than you'd like." It wasn't a threat, it was simply one of the Avengers telling an acquaintance to come clean.

"And if you know the whole story, it might turn out for both of us a lot worse than we'd like. I'm sure Joe wouldn't want to come back to find us at each other's throats, so...as I said. I settle debts." Tommy said.

This harlot should be put in her place for her presumption. I care not if she's the daughter of the God of War! She is beginning to annoy me...

Tommy took a deep breath and shook his head again.

"I didn't get to come back to life just because I asked nicely. I made a deal and said deal involves a work-release program, of sorts. As long I work, I stay out on release." he said.

"So why did you leave Joe behind?" Roxie asked. If she wouldn't get an answer to the supernatural question, she'd find the answer for herself. Roxie was good at that sort of thing. "Because of this deal?"

"Yeah, I left once he understood what was really going on. I knew the day I met him that he and I were very different men. Deep down, he's a very good and moral man who can't leave a wrong unrighted." Tommy said.

"And deep down, I am the exact opposite, Roxie. We would have come to blows eventually over our differences, so I left before we could out of respect for our friendship. And my deal had everything to do with that." he told her.

Roxie took a long sip of her gimlet and then leaned back in her seat. Something in her expression softened as she started to put pieces together.

"You didn't have anything to do with my dead doorman, did you?"

Tommy sat up a little as she mentioned a dead doorman.

"No, I didn't, Roxie. I'm sorry to hear that. Did someone attack you? Did they attack Joe?" he asked her, all business.

There was still a bit of hesitation in Roxie. She didn't know how far she could trust this man - or what had really gone on between him and Joe. Hearing it was one thing, but she had no way of knowing what was the truth and what wasn't.

And Joe had gone after whoever had sent the message to their home.

"We weren't attacked," she finally admitted. "Not directly, though someone stabbed my doorman with a knife that looked very familiar to Joe." Her lips were set in a thick, grim line. "Joe went to track down the originator of the message. I just assumed when you showed up that you were behind it." She paused. That meant it was connected to Melissa, then.

Cripes.

"Why are you here now, Tommy? Why check up on Joe after all this time?"

And now Tommy gets it. Damn his crappy timing to hell. No wonder she didn't trust him.

"I swear, I didn't know you guys were in trouble but I was worried about Joe. The only thing Joe did more than think about you was brood over some girl he broke up with out west." Tommy said.

"I came here because I wanted to know Joe was all right. There's a federal agent after me over what happened in Missouri but the guy is in service of some really bad people and they might use him to get to me." Tommy said.

"I wanted to tell him that they're gonna come at him sideways,with the law. But they're possessed by demons. You need to watch out for Joe and them." he said.

Edited 2012-11-26 04:47 (UTC)

"Melissa," Roxie confirmed. "That...ended abruptly." Because, really, it wasn't her story to tell, and what else could she say?

She waved Aaron over for another gimlet.

"Tommy, I need you to level with me here. If it's bad, I can help. I have part of me in the supernatural, and another part of me in science fiction. They both overshadow the part of me that's mundane. If this concerns Joe, then as his friend and housemate, it concerns me as well."

"Yeah, Melissa. That was her name. He should probably contact her to be on the safe side. They might ask about him. I think someone saw us the night we dealt with my family and Joe didn't really do much. I did the heavy lifting there, but...these guys will go after anyone they can to get to me." Tommy said.

"If you can get a message to him, just tell him to be real careful if any cops or feds come at him." Tommy said.

"Demons are dangerous."

"..." Roxie bit her lip at that first sentence. She took a deep breath and another long sip of her gimlet. "Was there any chance that you knew Melissa?"

"No, I didn't. I got the impression I didn't know everything, but it seemed like she was important to him. He felt responsible for the break-up. I told him he should go back and talk to her if he felt that way but he usually clammed up after that. I didn't press for more information." he said.

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