multiversallogs | [pounding on the door; open]

Entry tags:

[pounding on the door; open]

Who: Steve Rogers and anyone at the Inn.
What: Cap arrives!
Where: The arrival rooms, the Valhalla Inn.
When: afternoon into evening--I'm being flexible with time so many people can play :D
Notes: In-person log because shhhh learning a CiD is hard when you're from 1945.
Warnings: Potential for lots of aw-shucks behavior. Also eyelashes, stand back.

The frozen white ground looms up closer and closer, faster and faster. The drone of the engine has sharpened into a protesting whine, nearly drowning out the sound of Peggy’s voice in the cabin. He knows this is it, that he has mere seconds.

He’s as brave as ever, playing it up for her sake. “We’ll get the band to play something slow,” he calls out to her. “And then maybe I won’t step on your feet.”

He has no way to know those last few words were cut off, no way to know she can’t hear him any longer and she’s already calling his name into her microphone, frantic with worry and grief. All he can see out of the plane’s broken windscreens is the ground now. I’m sorry, he mouths, without really knowing who he’s addressing; before he can figure it out, the plane’s nose impacts, sending him flying forward.

He’s braced for pain, for the scrape of metal and ice over his suit and skin, for bones crunching as the hard ice stops his momentum. He slides, but it’s… odd. It’s not the slick movement of a body over ice or the tearing of his body over broken metal. It’s like skidding on a floor.

He stops with a gentle thump. Far too gentle. When he sits up he’s no longer in the plane but not out on the frozen tundra, either. He’s in a room. It’s green. His shield is propped against a table; he slings it across his back and then he studies the pamphlet he finds on the table. Twice. Carefully.

He looks over the device—a CiD?—and he pockets that. Yes, he could call for help, but he’d need time to study the device and learn what to do, and there’s a more direct way, at least he thinks so.

“Hello?”

Anyone in the vicinity of the arrival rooms will hear a thumping from behind one of the doors, and a man’s voice, calling out politely.

“Hello? Is anyone out there? Could someone open the door, please?”

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Claire has been getting her things together over the past several days. Despite not having much by way of possessions, she's still finding that it's taking her longer to move in with Kate than expected. It isn't that she's become accustomed to and comfortable with staying at the Inn, but there's something permanent about finding an apartment in a place like this.

Still, she's bought what she can with the little bit of money that she has left, and there are two bags dangling from her wrists as she makes her way back to the Valhalla Inn's front door with a quick and steady step. She looks up, catching her messenger bag in the crook of her elbow as it slips down from her shoulder. Squinting into the evening twilight, from several paces away Claire isn't sure what she sees, and while she isn't always necessarily so forward, some questions just beg to be asked.

"'Scuse me, but... is that a shield?"

Steve realizes he's being addressed; the voice must be coming from the woman he spotted down the block as he stepped out of the Inn. He turns, taking off his helmet and tucking it under his arm (there's a lady present, keeping it on would be rude).

"Ma'am? Oh. You mean--" he turns again, trying to look at the shield over his shoulder, and he winds up turning completely around, one full revolution. The effect is rather like a kitten who's just discovered he has a tail.

"That's-- yes, ma'am. It's a shield. Comes in handy sometimes."

Hearing 'ma'am' doesn't surprise her - this is a girl who grew up in Texas with parents who expected her manners to be as impeccable as her room and brought her up as such - but it does leave her feeling a bit displaced, causes a grin to stretch across her face that only grows into something she has to press her lips together in order to hide. She's only just come across this person, and regardless of how funny it is to watch a grown man turn in circles like an overgrown puppy, it just doesn't seem polite to go laughing at him in the same breath. The intention might be there, obviously there, but there's something to be said for trying.

"For what?" she asks, once he's done that about-face. "Obviously it's for shielding you from things, but do you make a habit out of getting shot at or something?" Maybe that's a bit forward, too, but she's gotten so used to making conversation with total strangers over the past three years that asking something other than the standard 'how are you?' or 'are you new around here?' just seems weird. Claire gets to those things eventually, but it's her curiosity she pays more attention to.

That, and the helmet that he's tucked under his arm and his presence in general. Most men she's met don't behave this way.

Steve doesn't even realize he's nearly been laughed at. He's too busy being surprised by the line of questioning--though he guesses he kind of has to expect it, showing up dressed like he is.

"Actually, I do. Well. It's less that I make a habit of getting shot at and more that other people seem to have a really bad habit of shooting at me. It sorta comes with the territory, I guess, being a soldier and all."

He takes in the bags dangling from her grip. "Can I help you with those, ma'am?"

Truth be told, it's not the strangest getup she's ever seen, but in this place, out on the street as they are, he seems to stand out with all that red and blue. He'd fit in perfectly at a Fourth of July theme party, or maybe some kind of comic book convention, not that she knows too much about that.

He's taking the bags from her before she has a chance to protest, although she still does, saying, as the plastic handles slide down over her hands to roll onto his, "Oh, no, that's - okay. Thank you."

Free from a heavier burden, Claire is able to pull her messenger bag back up onto her shoulder. She gestures down toward the Inn. "I promise I'm not far. So you're a soldier? I've never seen a uniform like that." She takes a step in the general direction of her destination but then comes up short and, not thinking, sticks her hand out. "Sorry, I'm Claire, by the way. Bennet. You don't have to keep calling me ma'am. I'll start feeling like someone's aunt."

Even if the load isn't all that heavy, far be it from Steve to just stand there and let a lady hold things while his hands are free. That's not right. "It's all right," he assures her, smiling. "I don't mind. You said the inn? I just came from there. Just got there, actually."

The smile grows a bit as he falls into step beside her, mindfully shortening his long strides. "All right, Claire. I'm Captain Steve Rogers--just Steve's fine."

"Yeah," Claire says, eyes finding their way back to the shield and then down to her bags, "you look sort of fresh off the boat. No offense. Not that I'm a seasoned veteran or anything. I've only been here for a little over a week myself." And she has to admit that he seems more capable than she was whenever she was let out of the arrival room. If he's already helping people carry their shopping up and down the street, then he must at least have a certain adaptability. Maybe. She can't really be sure with that outfit.

"Anyway, welcome to Baedal. I'd point out good places to check out, but I haven't really ventured that far out of this general area myself." There are wide, interesting hand gestures that accompany this bit of advice, and she grips her bag's strap in both hands upon realizing. "It's nice to meet you, Steve."

"Hey, a week's more than I got under my belt." That's Steve, always trying to make things better. And sure, he's adaptable--kinda comes with the territory, being a soldier. But adapting to this strange new place doesn't mean he's going to leave his values behind, not even the ones that tell him to carry a lady's groceries up to her door.

"I'm sure you'll figure out the rest, in time. So did you come through one of those rooms, too? When you got here?"

She isn't sure she'll figure things out anymore than she has in the past, but if there's anyone with a healthy dose of curiosity, it's Claire. Her ability only ever enables that dosage, pushes it further than most people might be able to go. There are areas of Baedal that she already has on her radar, pushpinned in her mind, though Steve is far too much of a stranger to bring them up with him. She isn't even the one she should be focusing on: after all, she's been here a week; he just got here.

"One of the Don't Panic rooms?" She nods. "Yeah, I was in one of those when I showed up. I just waited for someone to come and let me out. Read the pamphlet for a while, tried to make sense of it all. Did you have to wait long to be let out?"

"Don't Panic rooms?" Steve thinks about that for a moment, and then he nods, grinning faintly. "Yeah. The room I was in sure did have that scratched in the floor. And I had to wait a little while. Not too long, I don't think." He gives her a sheepish look. "Guess it might've gone faster if I had figured out how to use that communication device. I could've called for help. But it turned out all right in the end."

Claire looks up at him, eyes narrowed as she considers him. From the uniform to the demeanor, everything lines up but doesn't at the same time. She digs around in her bag and pulls out her CiD, swiping her thumb across the screen. "I can give you a tutorial sometime, if you like. It's the least I can do for carrying my bags." Thumb still pressed against that flat surface, she looks around as if searching for words to the question she wants to ask. "When - where are you from, anyway?"

"That'd be nice, if it's not too much trouble. They don't really have anything like this where I'm from. I'm used to radios. Mr. Stark's been working on some advanced transponders and things but this device is a little beyond me, I'm afraid."

He smiles slightly at her question. He's been asked enough already to gather he sticks out a little. "I'm from Brooklyn, originally. Born and raised, until I enlisted. I toured the country--"

USO tour. Shhh.

"--and then I went to the fronts in Europe. I was last in Austria. On the tenth of February, 1945."

So, yeah. Smartphones weren't really a thing yet.

Both of her eyebrows raise, and Claire spends a moment doing the math in her head, acknowledging that date. She looks away before her staring borders on rude. "You're adapting really well, for someone from 1945." Another moment is spared so that she can glance at their surroundings, at the CiD in her hand. She spent several hours freaking out once she realized that she was in Baedal, and the experience of world hopping is hardly a novelty to her. She can't know if he spent several hours freaking out as well, but she has a feeling he wouldn't be half as composed as he is now if he had, soldier or not.

"I've known people from the '70s, but never anyone from before then, that I can remember," she continues, stepping up onto the curb while she holds her CiD flat in the palm of her hand again, effectively putting it on display. "I'm from... 2007, originally. California by way of Texas, so Brooklyn isn't actually on another planet. I don't know if that's comforting or not. This -" and she shakes the CiD in her hand a bit - "really isn't that hard to get the hang of. It's pretty straightforward after you play around with it a little."

She holds the thing out for him to take, if he wants, and she's willing to exchange verifiable smartphone for shopping bag if it comes down to it.

"So you enlisted to fight in World War Two." How do you even reply? "I doubt exciting is really the right thing to say to that. It's admirable. Better than most of the people my age, in my time."

"Oh, thank you," he defers, "but I got one too. It's in my pocket. I'm all right." No, he's not giving up a shopping bag. "But maybe I'll try that. Just play with it."

Expect many amusing broadcasts in the near future, O cohort.

He shrugs as they head up to the Inn's front doors. "I don't know about it being anything special," he says. "It was the right thing to do. People can't be bullied. Those of us who can stand up to them need to." He still doesn't think of himself as a hero, or what he does as anything remarkable. It's his duty, his obligation to stand up for those who can't.

"Yeah, that's what I meant," Claire says, with a slight laugh, reaching to pull the Inn door open before he gets the notion in his head to do that for her, too. Over her shoulder, she continues, barely pausing to breathe or even indicate a subject change. "You either had a really crappy high school experience or a really good one. I think it's special. Or, interesting, I guess. There aren't many people in any world who will stand up and do what's right like that. Most people are too worried about what everyone else will think. Or, you know, getting the crap kicked out of them, too."

It is admirable, to her, but then this is a girl who's had someone like Peter Petrelli to set examples for her, good and bad. So she has a little bit of a tendency to hero worship. It comes with the territory.

She holds her hands out. "You can probably give those back now, unless you want to furnish your room to look like a girl's."

There's a bit of a wry smile on his lips as he steps through the door. "My high school experience was... pretty terrible. And I spent a lot of time getting the stuffing kicked out of me, too, pretty regular, for standing up for what I believed in. But it's important. It's needed."

He raises his eyebrows, and then he nods, handing over the bags. "No, that's probably for the best. Here you are." Probably for the best that he not decorate his room like a girl's room. And also probably for the best that he hand over the bags here--as much as he hates to abandon a job before it's done there's also no way following a young woman up to her room looks good. He doesn't want anyone getting ideas, least of all her.

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[pounding on the door; open]

also sometime after steve is out, whenever is convenient!

\o/

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