Summary:Ben drops in on the Young Avengers to see how they're settling in and meets Koriand'r Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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It had been a few days since the Young Avengers had moved in to the Baxter Building. Ben had stayed out of their collective hair for a while, though sooner or later, he found himself descending in the freight elevator that he used to access the upper floors of the over-engineered building. He was dressed in his heroing uniform - blue pants and a thick black belt with a 4-themed buckle. He finds himself standing before the entrance to the Young Avengers' section of the building and pauses for a moment, hand hovering in the air in front of the door. A last moment of inner debate before he knocks with a single finger, hard enough for the sound to carry.
There's a little delay and the door intercom buzzes. "<Hello Mr. Grimm. Someone will be down to meet you in a moment,>" remarks the VI helper program.
Sure enough the door slides open, revealing a tangerine-skinned woman in electric-pink jean shorts and a white crop-top that says 'WORLD CUP BRASIL 2023'.
"Friend Ben Grimm!" Kori crashes into Ben with her usual overexuberant abundance of affection and her arms wide with a hug. "Hello! I am so glad to see you!" She floats an inch off the ground, hair moving in lazy streamers behind her in response to minor eddies of air. "You are dressed for work, I see. Is there an emergency?" she inquires, eyes suddenly going wide with alarm.
Ben Grimm's eyes widen a little at the appearance of Koriandr and her typical smoosh-hello. He doesn't rock back on his heels, the woman finding herself flying against the immovable object, but the hard reception is only physical. He gives a rough-voiced chuckle, surprised and pleased sounding, and an arm wraps around her waist to return the hug - cautiously - before he unwinds it from around her. "No no, I was just out," he answers off-handedly, waving aside the concern. "I thought I'd come by and see how you's all are settlin' in." He scrapes a hand over the top of his head as he speaks.
"Oh, the in of settling is going very well!" Kori declares with a beaming smile. "We are very happy with the facilities," she assures Ben. "The majority of the remodelling work is done. We are integratign our computer systems and everyone is decorating their personal rooms. /I/ painted my walls," she says, proudly. "My last landlord wouldn't let me, but Mr. Doctor Fantastic said I 'should go of the nuts'."
She floats there in the doorway, beaming obliviously for a few moments.
"Oh! Yes, there is a social protocol here." She furrows her brow, then carefully pivots in midair and waves a hand towards the interior, bowing over it. "Would you please care to come of the inside?" she says, with great care to be Properly Polite.
Ben Grimm offers a singular nod of approval, the look decisive. "Good," he answers when she gives her report on their progress. "I mean, I'm glad you's are makin' it your own." His features spread into a stiff grin as she describes her painting project. He opens his mouth to follow up - to ask a question maybe or to excuse himself, but then she rotates and motions into the Young Avengers' space. "Oh," he answers, again scraping his hand across his head. "Yeah, all right! Thanks," he adds, before moving to the door. Waiting for her to go in or… else having to awkwardly shuffle past her. He all but fills a doorway himself, after all.
Kori floats out of Ben's way so he's not obligated to push through her, and drifts through the hall a half pace ahead of him. Not to be rude, but because, well. He takes up most of a hallway.
"We are using this for our 'command center'," she explains with a wave around the area. It's very sleek and functional, a minimalist decor that shows it's a work area. Conference room, training area, and a larger command and control center that's still filled with partially assembled computers, empty cardboard boxes, and plastic electronics crates that are labelled with a variety of codes and arcane numerals.
"Can I offer of you something to drink?" she inquires with a sincere attempt to maintain good manners. "I am told that is the polite thing to do with guests, and I am trying to be 'the chill' with visitors."
"You're doin' a bang-up job," he commends her with a bob of his head. "Real Earth manners you're showin'. But I'm okay, thanks. Don't need anything." He nods along during the tour, looking over the burgeoning command centre and other amenities being incorporated into the command centre. He adds, "You guys are putting' together something cool here." He idly sweeps a finger over the command and control centre. "This tie in with the main Avengers stuff? Like, do you guys operate independently, or is it that they assign stuff for you?" He continues to meander after her, eyes mostly on the facility she is touring him through.
"Oh no, we are quite independent of them," Kori assures Ben. "Someone told me the Avengers have a 'mark of trade' on their name. If we were to call ourselves the Avengers, we might get associated with that group. However, there is no rule against being the 'Young' Avengers. Like a club for fans!" she beams.
"So we gain some of the notoriety of that name without being explicitly affiliated with them. I only know two of the Avengers, anyway," she tells Ben. "We are operating independently and without oversight aside from our anonymous sponsor, and he very rarely involves himself with decisions. It is a very liberating arrangement!"
"Oh yeah?" he offers rhetorically when she talks about the regulations surrounding hero-naming. "I never really thought about it. Suzie handles most of our trademarks and marketing and all that jazz," he relates with a shrug of those broad shoulders. "I mean, its makes sense… just not something I ever have to think much about."
He pauses at the point in the tour where they have reached, turning to face her a little more directly. He narrows his eyes thoughtfully and he asks, "You mind if I ask you a personal question, Kori?"
"I do not understand why people ask that," Kori says with a confused expression. "Does anyone ever say 'no'?" she inquires. She bobs up and down a half an inch in place, suspending in the air with no more effort than she'd exert to be standing. The thick red hair in her wake continues to curl and roll in ways that seem only tangentially related to the effects of air and gravity. "If I said 'no', I would be 'the rude'. But you wouldn't have asked if you thought I was going to say 'no', so wouldn't it simply be easier to *assume* I do not object? How else are friends going to get to know each other if not for some trust?"
Ben Grimm considers the question for a moment, blinking in faint surprise to it. "Well," he offers, "I guess you're right. It's… I guess a politeness thing. Like I'm changing the subject but it's not really polite to just say 'Now I want to ask you personal questions'. And you normally wouldn't hear someone say 'no', but they might say yes in a way that expresses a reservation. Anything less than an encouraging 'yes' kind of communicates that I should be cautious about what I ask." He offers wan, apologetic sort of smile, "There's a lot of subtext to it, I guess."
Kori considers Ben's words with a gravitas that could be mistaken for patronizing if it were not so sincere. Pensive, brow furrowed, she finally nods twice as if understanding. "Yes. Yes! I understand," she tells him. "I mean, I understand what you explained. I still don't understand what personal questions are. It seems to vary very wildly. People do not wish to discuss politics, or relationships, or money. But those are the most interesting and complicated parts of human culture!" she protests. "I asked a teacher how much she made and she got very cross with me. I thought perhaps she felt undervalued, so I asked if her wages were perhaps linked to negative performance? Which made her even *angrier*!"
She huffs in exasperated frustration. "You people are so… /weird/ sometimes!"
Ben Grimm laughs, and laughs harder with the increasing frustration of Kori. He lifts his hands, fanning out those three-fingered plates as though to ward off a rebuke. "I'm sorry. I'm laughin' cause you're right. Cause it would be confusing and… and we don't make a lot of sense, in a lot of ways. But, you're right, personal questions are stuff about politics, relationships, money… there's also family background, religion, stuff like that. Here's mine I was wantin' to ask: you're from someplace else. Where you from? And why did you decide to come here?"
"Did— I thought Mr. Reed had explained it," Kori says, looking a little startled. She glances around, as if making sure no one's lurking in a corner, and beckons Ben to a sitting area. There's at least one chair large enough for him to sit in at the table, and she settles gracefully onto the other one. Her bare heels rest on the edge of the cushion and she hugs her knees to her chest with a pensive look.
"I … this is not something I'd prefer repeated," she cautions him. All the usual joy and levity is gone, replaced by a very deep sorrow underlaying her sweet voice. "I did not come here entirely voluntarily. Earth was the last stop after a great deal of time travelling in space. It's… well, it's a primitive backwater," she admits. "And very far from the concerns of major intergalactic politics. I was a… I was very highly placed in the aristocracy of Tamaran," she explains. "I was a member of the clergy and allied with the royal family. There was … " She swallows, clearing her throat. "There was an insurrection. Many people died. Enemies seized control and executed my p- my queen and king. Families were imprisoned or enslaved. I was captured and … held hostage for a long time. After I escaped, I ran as far as I could until I found a civilization that was reasonably advanced but not ensnared in intergalactic politics. I can use my name here without fear of it being relayed to the Vega system, or bounty hunters using it to track me."
Ben follows Kori's lead, likewise looking around for unseen lurkers before he following along after her, moving over to sit at the table. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, lacing his orange fingers together as he listens to the tale she relates. His eyes search her features while she speaks, the severity and pain of the history becoming apparent with the telling. Soon enough, she is at the end of the tale and he reaches forward. He moves to give some bracing contact and, given her position, that means kind of cupping her shin, right near her knee. He squeezes ever so slightly - cautious to avoid applying too much pressure. "I'm sorry," he offers. "Sounds really dark. Dangerous and… sad." He pauses for a beat, then adds, "I'm glad you made it out, though. Glad to have you at our primitive backwater." He offers a wan, stiff smile at that - a small offering of levity that may well go missed.
Kori smiles gratefully at Ben, and pats his hand atop her leg. There's not much yield under the skin there. Whatever she looks like, her muscles are so dense they feel more like Ben's own skin than human flesh and bone. "You are very the kind, Mr. Ben Grimm," Kori tells him gratefully. "And I love how primitive this planet is. It is… oh! It is like 'the camping'," she explains to him. "You do not have all the amenities of a primary civilization but that is part of the charm. There's no subneural networks or telemetric broadcasting. I can fly a few miles from the city and be somewhere so peaceful and quiet that I can hear my own heart beating. Many settled worlds are so thoroughly overpopulated that solitude is difficult to obtain. I welcome it at times."
Ben Grimm grins and bobs his head agreeably, not seeming to have taken any umbrage to her description of the planet as a backwater. With her hand atop his for the moment, his own is left in place. "I'm more a city guy myself, but yeah… it can be nice to get away," he agrees. Once her hand lifts, he will retract his own. "And now we're better friends," he tells her. "Now you can ask me personal questions when you want, and I can ask you some more too. That's the way it goes," he declares, adopting the position of master of social norms.
"Oh, the joy!" Kori declares, beaming again. Her melancholy evaporates as fast as water on a hot griddle. "I am always glad to make new friends, and make my current friendships even better," she tells Ben. "I will try to think of a good personal question for you."
Her eyes narrow to feline slits and she makes some 'hmm' and 'hrmph' noises, nibbling on a thumbnail and staring into the middle distance for a good ten seconds.
"Oh! I have a good one," she promises him. "What is … the best kind of music to listen to?"
He offers his own smile in response to hers - the expression not fitting as it would on a human's features, but becoming more and more familiar to her as she sees it more often. It may not be a human smile, exactly, but it's a Thing smile and, in that changing paradigm, it fits naturally. He wasn't sure what to expect after she ruminated, but finally, when she comes up with her question, he gives a faint laugh and a shake of his head. "Well. That's a million-dollar question. I mean, you'll get a different answer from everybody you ask. But I'm more a… uh, rock guy. Never was much of a dancer or anything like that." He offers another smile, this one vaguely ill-at-ease as he makes an offer. "I can give you a playlist or something, if you wanna explore it."
Kori looks at Ben. "Rock?"
She suddenly bursts out laughing. A big, rolling belly laugh, completely uninhibited and full of high, merry peals of uncontrolled giggles. "Oh! Oh! That is SO FUNNY! I *get* that joke!" she remarks, and laughs again, for several long moments. She lurches over and grips Ben's forearm, covering her forehead with one hand and laughing still.
"Because Rock is *fantastic*, and you're the *Fantastic Four!*" she explains.
She rolls in her seat, slowly managing to downgrade the laughing fit to mere giggles.
Ben opens his mouth to join in the joke amid her laughter, at least until she explains what she finds uproariously funny. He is then left stunned for a moment - taking his turn to try to grasp the humour in the play on words she suggests. He's left with an awkward feeling over him, but he is not about to stop the music of her laughter. His eyes flit one side to another, and he just gives a faint chortle. "Yeah… yeah, pretty good," he offers. "But… I'll get you some music that I like. If you want it."
"Oh that would be most wonderful!" Kori says with a tone of sincere gratitude. "I very much enjoy the music of Earth. It is so wonderfully varied and eclectic! Did you know there are Mongolian throatsingers who perform renditions of classical folk songs, but as *death metal*? No one dies, it's much more boring than I thought it would be," she admits. "But it was still fun."
"I enjoy very much learning about the tastes and preferences of people. This will be the fun! If you find any music or movies or books you enjoy, please, tell me," she begs Ben. "My friend Jean and I watched all of the Disney movies, and it was great fun."
"There are?" he answers, blinking and trying to imagine the strains of throat-singers performing folk classics to thrashing guitars and pounding drums. "Huh," he comments after a moment, refocusing on the here and now. He lifts a hand to scrape it along the back of his head now, pausing for a moment as though a recommendation of media were something that required some screwing up of courage. Then, he offers, with an adopted, casual air, "I got a pretty good setup upstairs. If you wanna come see a movie with me sometime, I could make some suggestions. Something with more action than the Disney stuff, if you don't wanna be bored…"
"Oh! I do enjoy the movie experience," Kori agrees with a beaming smile. "All of it! Popcorn, and delicious treats, and the surround sound that goes *thud thud thud*," she says, trying to mimic the noise of the bass.
"But I have not found any movies so far to be the boring, and I trust that someone with good music will, also, not have boring movies! I would be very delighted to enjoy a film with a friend," Kori says with that endlessly enthusiastic cheer.
Ben bobs his head once more, exhaling in some relief at the agreeable response. "Okay," he answers. "And I'd better seal the deal on this thing before givin' you some of my music, just in case the throat-singers of Mongolia is more your style," he offers with another faint chuckle. He pauses for a beat, then offers, "What if… you want to come by tomorrow night? Maybe eight?"
"I do not mind the time; if eight of the clock is best for you, then that works for me. I need to sleep very little, if at all," Kori explains to Ben. "My species doesn't need rest as much as humans. It is more for purposes of promoting mental tranquility, otherwise we turn into rampaging zabnorfs. And I am sure no one wants that!"
She busts out laughing again as if she said the funniest joke of all time, and levitates smoothly to a vertical position with her feet not quite touching the ground. "I shall see you of the tomorrow, then, friend Ben!" she declares with a beaming smile. "It will be the fun!"