exsiliumlogs | MISSION: GRAB THE EYEBALLTAUR

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MISSION: GRAB THE EYEBALLTAUR

Date & Time: March 7th, 1994
Location: The MICA campus: Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
Characters: Everyone
Summary: All transports are shipped back to 1994 to steal art from art students. Also, some of them arrive bodyswapped.

The Initiative has timed the incoming waves of Transports to the MICA campus for Freshmen Orientation, but even so, the flood of newcomers gets a few surprised glances. Looks like MICA's up for a major boom in attendance next year, wow. But do some of those freshman look a little old to you? …And do some of them seem to be freaking out a lot more than usual about being in Baltimore?

The cloaking devices, with holograms visible only to the natives, will be blending everyone in with the native 90s fashion senses, and all non-humans will find themselves getting much more tame curious glances than they might back on Exsilium, as they project a human appearance to natives around them. So at least there's that. Just try not to get arrested, hit by cars, or challenged to any break dance competitions as you grab and run off with bizarre works of art, alright? The weirder it looks, the more likely it probably is to be the power source the Initiative needs for the Transporter.

Oh, yeah, and sorry about the body-swap-around. Just deal with that as best you can, because the mission really must go on. Any harried and worried Initiative employee along on the mission that you might be able to find will just sputter a hasty not-really-explanative explanation and hurry away, trading frantic messages with the headquarters in Exsilium. They'll get this all sorted out by the time you get back, don't worry.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She likes the nineties. It's nostalgic, closer to home, even if it's the wrong country. Even if she hasn't listened to music in an age, and if what passed for fashion in Wirrawee was a stretch compared to this place. She wishes she could enjoy it and the familiarity, if not for the fact that she's in the wrong fucking body.

They weren't lying when they said this place could get crazier during missions.

And she hadn't been wanting to see anyone, either. She wanted to be alone, removed, enjoy her isolation and not even that could go smoothly. That's forgotten when she sees Steph - exactly one of the people she has been avoiding - and promptly smacks her head on a low-hanging branch. Being five inches taller than usual is not easy to manage.

"Bloody Hell!"

The accent remains the same, at least, and without thinking she lashes at the tree with her foot. (She'll have to apologise to Snow for all these bruises, later.)

It's the swearing that catches her attention, and she stops in her tracks to look for the source of it, frowning a little when she sees Snow. The woman is somewhat familiar, Steph thinks she's seen her on the network, one of the people that replied to Rita's bullshit newstory, but bloody hell doesn't seem like the sort of thing she'd say.

She can tell that someone else is in the body, and it doesn't take her long to figure out how could be in there, and then she's closing the remaining distance between the two of them, "Ellie?"

"Shut up." She's just waiting for the mockery, fingertips brushing the bruise appearing, hot enough that her skin feels like it's glowing. (She's pretty sure it isn't, but you never know, with Exsilium related rubbish.) "Forget it."

Talking to people was just turning out to be a bad idea. She doesn't want to find art, or be in Baltimore, even if it is a release from the rain. Her fingers press the bruise a little too hard, and she hisses at herself. "Jesus."

It's enough to make her pause while she's still a few feet away, instead of getting up close and reaching out like she wants to. Her conversation with Vanadi is still fresh in her mind, the suggestion she'd made that she was going to yell at Ellie, but now really isn't the time for it, so she just feels sort of - lost as to what to do.

"I wasn't gonna say anything," Well, maybe are you alright? but she has a feeling that's not the sort of thing Ellie was pre-emptively trying to avoid.

"Bullshit you weren't." Ellie glances at Steph. It's strange to see her without Steph being so much taller, and yet the observation is so trivial that Ellie rolls her eyes at herself. "You weren't going to say anything about me being awful to Fi, or leaving you to pick up the pieces, or being away for a few days."

She sits down on the ground, shoulders as stiff and uncomfortable as they always are. "This body is like a kick in the teeth."

"I wasn't gonna do it now," And that's true, even if she winces a little at being called on what she does want to talk to Ellie about eventually.

She moves to crouch in front of Ellie, not as close as she normally would, but Ellie could still reach out and touch her if she wanted to, "It doesn't suit you," She tries something light, a smile, even if she's worried it'll backfire.

Ellie snorts a bit.

"Too naive and idealistic, huh?" Her mouth twinges with an unpleasant mockery of a smile. She rests her forehead on her knees, curling her fingers into her palms. She's rather grab at Steph, grip onto her, hold on until somehow she's back to being herself again. "Or we could just say it's too tall."

Somehow it feels wrong to have fire and rage when she's in this body. This body belongs to someone calm and refined, someone good and inherently innocent.

"I was gonna go with too prim and proper, but yours works too," A little hesitantly - in part because she's not sure how Ellie will react, but also because the body is unfamiliar to her - she reaches out to run her fingers lightly through Ellie's hair.

She can't imagine how she'd feel in the same situation, and all she wants right now is to fix it for Ellie.

"I'm a real lady, though, didn't you know?"

Steph's touch is a relief, Ellie leaning into the contact. It's the first she's had in days, and it's embarrassing to think how much she's missed being around people, even as she had longed for solitude, for avoiding everyone and banishing them from her thoughts - which never worked as well as she thought it would.

"I don't even know this person's name, yeah? But she doesn't seem real." A bit absently: "She feels stronger than I do," murmured, as she flexes Snow's leg, testing the knee.

"We both know that's a lie," But it's not an insult, because Steph doesn't consider herself much of a lady either.

When the response is positive, Steph firms the touch, gently carding her fingers through the dark curls that feel so different to Ellie's hair. It's strange, but the physical comfort for Ellie is more important than how Steph might feel about it. She is going to feel really awkward if she ever runs into Snow once everyone is back in the right body.

"She's older than you," Not that older always means stronger, but what Steph is also not-quite-saying is that this woman probably hasn't spent the last whoever long malnourished in a war zone.

The faintest smile catches her lips. "Maybe. Do you think I should switch my conditioner, though?" It was bad enough being around Asami, within about five minutes she'd made Ellie feel like she needed to go and polish and shine herself up.

"A real grown up." She frowns, just a little, the barest flicker in her expression. "I should find her, later. Tell her not to let the knee get cold." Exsilium is awful for it, the wet and the cold. The Outlands are worse, though Ellie will hardly admit it. It's strange to be in a body that doesn't have the painful knee, to feel like there is softness in her limbs instead of hunger-hardened muscle and skin and bone. It remind her of Robyn and how she changed, in the way that so many things remind her of Robyn, make her chest tighten, breath come shallow. "I'm glad you're still Steph."

As faint as it is, that smile is a relief, "I'll see if I can find a curling iron to bring back with us, too," They can turn Ellie into a princess, it'll be an adventure.

The shift in Ellie's expression, in her breathing, make Steph move closer, kneeling now, one hand curled around the back of Ellie's neck and the other on her knee, "We can go look for her," Together, if Ellie wants, or Steph will leave her to do it alone, whichever she prefers. As for still being herself, her smile twists, "So am I. Don't think anyone would want my body."

The bitterness is dredged up with the reminder of her scars, of the way Vanadi said her name after finding out about them. She might not have a messed up knee, but her body still feels - ruined.

"Watch it. I might start spending all my time in the mirror." Ah, ha. Never.

"Hey." The fingers, paler than her own, less callused, find their anchor in Steph's shirt. Her brow flickers, and though she knows there is a lot she doesn't know, as many secrets and hidden things to Steph as there are to herself (and that is a thing hard to comprehend when someone is so good and so kind), she shakes her head. Finding ways to articulate and form a rebuttal are hard when she doesn't know what she is trying to counter, but she tries anyway. "Anyone'd be lucky to be you for a day, but they wouldn't match up. We all belong in our own skins, yeah? I don't reckon this one'd be too impressed to realise who's body she's got, after the mad chats we've had. "

Was there a point she was trying to make? She can't tell. "There's nothing wrong with your body, but it belongs to you. I'm happy you're in it. It's where you've lived your stories, and where you got to be Steph. No one else could live up to being you. They don't deserve you, or your stories, or all the wonderful and terrible things you've lived through in your body. All right?"

The face is all wrong, but the fingers curled in her shirt are familiar - and she doesn't think too hard about when those little touches between them became familiar, of all things - and the words are so Ellie that for a moment Steph can ignore the strangeness of it all. And the words make her chest feel tight, with gratitude and something else she can't explain.

So when she replies, at first, her tone is light, "I just know I wouldn't wish my joints on anyone," Flippant, dismissive, like that's all she meant by her comment, not all the other bitter things she'd been thinking. It's - true enough, too; Ellie might have a messed up knee, but all the Bats are going to have arthritis by the time they're thirty (Bruce probably already does).

"But..." She pauses, because she wants to say more, something that will seem right in repsonse to all Ellie's words, she just can't work out what, "Thank you."

It's not enough, and the way she's looking at Ellie is apologetic.

"Right. I'll see if I can track down some fish oil capsules, okay? My grandma said those make all the difference." Wrong body or no, she can still play the flippancy game. "Just message me when you need a hand crossing the street, okay?"

It's weird feeling that the way the muscles tug is different from your own. Smiling a smile that isn't yours, muscles trained to makes expressions in different ways, while somehow all those subconscious parts of your brain battle with it. The smile she gives Steph isn't an Ellie smile, but she's still behind it, means it as sincerely as possible. "Don't stress." She gets it; she knows. Words are wonderful and complicated and confusing and so amazing and so entirely likely to fall short at the crucial moment. The urgency in not-her fingers has faded.

"Are you okay?"

"You say that like I don't already take them," Really, Ellie, as if Steph isn't already on a steady supply of assorted vitamins and supplements, just to make sure she's getting everything her body needs. It's probably ironic, the way vigilantes abuse their bodies in some ways, and take care of them so painstakingly in others.

She moves her hands from Ellie's hair to take her hands, gently twining their fingers together, as she considers how to answer that question. Honesty, she promised honesty, "I just had a kinda rough talk with someone, I'll be fine."

So, no, she's not really okay right now, but it's the sort of thing that will pass.

A very small smile, the very tiniest of good-natured eyerolls. "Smartarse."

Ellie isn't going to delude herself that there's some magic wand she can wave to fix it. She knows better, but sometimes just sitting with someone in silence, holding their hands and just being present is enough to help them remember they aren't alone. Sometimes not being alone is the best thing you can get, all you need, all anyone can really give you. Her thumb brushes over the back of Steph's hand, and that's the only move she makes. She's staying.

"Yeah. You will be." She could say that she's there whenever Steph needs her, that she's got her back, but it feels awkward and unnecessary. She hopes Steph knows it, even with her bad temper and explosions.

For all her frustration at the way Ellie treated Fi, Steph can't find i in herself to be annoyed at her right now, not when she just feels so much better around Ellie. The ease of the comfort, of the way they've settled into patterns with each other, has made it so much easier to cope with everything else that's going on around her.

She doesn't want to think about what she'd be like now, without a month of Ellie's presence.

Which is why, instead of bringing up the whole Fi thing, she just smiles, "Screw the mission, we should go shopping. There's heaps here we can't exactly get back in Exsilium."

Bras. She wants bras that aren't as horrificly expensive as the ones in the city.

"Oh my God, Steph." She's laughing, surprised by the sudden change of subject. "You're a shocker." Meant in the very best sense, because-- well, because she's too sentimental, really. She's not dismissive, though. There's something that sounds fun about shopping, being silly, doing normal things. "Do you even have any American cash on you?" Bras would be good. Ellie is tired of only have one bra. But, actually: "it's gonna be difficult to get anything that fits my proper body, too."

With an amused huff, she shakes her head. "Is it corny that I want to go sightseeing a bit, too? Is there anything to sightsee, here? I've heard about Baltimore in movies, but I don't know anything about it."

"I've got like fifty bucks," She always carries emergencies cash, and she'd looked through what she had when she first arrived, figuring that about half of it is from the right time, even if it's not the right universe, "It shouldn't be too hard to get some more, if we find a bar I can hustle a little pool to get us some extra money."

Steph is not the best crime fighter, but her other thought was to find some drug dealers and steal their money, and she's not sure if that's better or worse.

"We can make a guess at what'll fit you, and if anything needs to be tailored I can manage that," This is partly a Bat thing, and partly the fact that she's been sewing since she was old enough to actually use one.

Her smile softens a little at that admission, "There's a pretty big aquarium, I think, that might be cool to visit," Apparently they're turning this mission into a tourist excursion.

"You're practically rolling in it." Such sarcasm, but so fondly meant. "I can be a graceful, elegant distraction while you fleece some poor buggers of their cash. Too bad it's not the seventeen hundreds, we'd have been the best highwaymen." On some level she is sure she should feel bad for joking about robbing people when she is in the body of one of the most polite, idealistic people she's sure exists. On the other hand, exactly that is what makes it funny.

She raises her eyebrows a little. "Really? Careful, Steph, or I'll decide you're the perfect woman," she replies, grinning a little as she elbows Steph's side. "Throwing people across rooms and sewing buttons. I'm glad my mum only ever got the second half, I bet there were times I would've gotten tossed about for being a pain in the backside otherwise." For once she's talking about her parents and it isn't painful. It's good. Nice, to be able to indulge.

"Yeah? Fish are pretty all right. They're delicious with chips, too."

Ellie is the literal worst person.

"Maybe we'll get a chance to be highwaymen, who knows where we'll end up next," Steph is also having trouble imagining someone who looks like Snow being a highwayman, but she can see her and Ellie doing it. Robin Hood, like they said before. (Oddly, though, she's looking forward to being partners in pseudo-crime).

In response to the elbow in the side, she punches Ellie's shoulder - lightly, because she doesn't want to bruise someone else's body - and makes a face at her, "What, are you thinking of marrying me off?" It's nice to hear Ellie talk about her parents, and she manages to keep the wince from her expression at the joke.

As for the fish and chips, she just shakes her head, "You're terrible."

"I hope I get to have a mask and a cape. I reckon I could make it work." Is that her teasing the Batgirl? ... Surely not.

Silly Steph, her expression says. Silly, silly Steph. "If I marry you off then you can't fix my clothes. I'll just keep you for myself." Ellie rubs her (temporary) arm, pouting in a way that probably looks completely off on Snow's face. "Fair go. Serves me right for giving you a compliment."

She can't help herself. "Yeah. It took you this long to figure it out?"

Her eyebrows go up, a hint of a smirk on her lips, "Careful what you say, I might be tempted to make you my sidekick," Not that she hasn't already considered at least investing in some body armour for Ellie, although they can't buy that on this particular trip.

"Only if that means you're the bread-winner," In this apparent future where they're a not-quite-married couple. She's not even going to touch on the compliment part, just rolling her eyes instead.

"I've known since I met you, sometimes it jsut bears repeating."

"Yeah? But I'd need a name, or... whatever it is. Codename? Nomme de vigilante?" She chuckles a bit, shaking her head. "The accent might give me away."

Hah. "Okay, sounds fair. Never pegged you for a housewife, though. Can you make a good roast?" Serious issues, serious questions.

What was that about gentle punching? It's flimsy even by friendly standards, and she winds up more just leaning against Steph. "You're pretty terrible, too."

MISSION: GRAB THE EYEBALLTAUR

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