maskormenacelogs | [closed] So if the feeling's right, then raise your glass and let's

WHO: Noh-Varr and David Alleyne
WHERE: The Club (You've probably never heard of it.)
WHEN: Sunday, June 8th, after the swearing-in ceremony
WHAT: Noh-Varr is bored and wants to hang out. David has a cell phone full of secrets?
WARNINGS: YOUTHFUL HIJINKS AND DRAMA.

[Noh-Varr would never say that the event had been without its value. He'd learned something, even if the information was certainly biased and suspect. Someplace to start digging, if he can convince the government to trust him and invite him deeper into the circle. Noh-Varr has been a superhero. But now, to be a hero, he might have to be a spy.

However, that doesn't mean he wants to stick around after and just hang around some old motel. The ceremony might be too guarded for him to break in anywhere else, but he can make sure they can get the hell out and get to have some fun. Especially since David isn't even coming back the next day anyway.]

It's not New York- [He raises his voice to be heard over the thundering bass.] - but there's more fun here than I thought there would be, for a small city.

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[ david has, as of yet, not quite gotten into the evening. he may be noh-varr's best choice of company for the night, but that doesn't make him particularly fun. instead of being out dancing, he's seated at one of the many glittering flying saucer tables, with a coke in a cup shaped like a rocketship.

he's seems more preoccupied with the phone in his hands than the crowd, but at noh-varr's statement, he looks up with a raised eyebrow. ]

You don't think it's a little pandering? I mean, from your perspective in particular.

[It's ok; Noh-Varr can be fun enough for the two of them. It's victory enough to get David out at all, and he will be sure to brag about it to Loki at a later date, as you do with friends when one of them has a crush on a party pooper.]

Because I'm an alien?

[This seems very funny to him. He's had three drinks. That's not why it's funny. Three drinks are nothing to him. Like hanging around with his shirt unbuttoned, it simply is.]

No, David. I would have, when I first came to Earth. Or I would have thought it was petty and small and stupidly naive, if I'd known about it. Now it seems quaint that this is what humans think of when they think about space and wonder about what they might find. How much they'd like flying saucers to be real, even if they know some of what's really out there. Of course they are, in a way, just not like this.

[He shrugs. The Kree are much too arrogant to be offended by such little ideas. And of course Noh-Varr would come to find the stereotype fascinating.]

But it's a good metaphor, and it looks cool. It just has as little to do with the reality of what it means to be Kree or any other species as it does with the reality of space.

Except for the little gray aliens with the big eyes. I've seen those in some of the dimensions I passed through on my way to yours.

"Cool", I guess, is an angle I hadn't really put to it. It's funny to think these ideas used to be menacing, where now they're just... [ he lifts up his mug, quirking an eyebrow. ] Novel.

When you see it a lot, you forget what the metaphor is, or that it was a metaphor at some point. But it stands in for humanity's fear of the unknown. Having experienced plenty of that myself, I guess I fail to see the good in it.

As a species, we've committed any number of ills against the unknown, the different. I think a lot of our problems come down to caricaturing and dehumanizing whatever isn't us so we feel more justified in doing what we want with them. [ because if anyone can turn a dumb flying saucer table into an overly serious discussion, it's david alleyne. ]

[And if there's anybody who'd turn it into a downer conversation, it's David Alleyne. But that's sort of what he brings to the table in any case, and what makes him effective- a strange, pragmatic ruthlessness in how to handle things. The exact opposite of Noh-Varr's more romantic notions, skewed as they are by his lack of understanding of actual human nature. David calls for reinforcements; Noh-Varr faces down the heroic do-or-die attempt.]

I forgive you for it. [He says, quite breezily. Noh-Varr knows better than most how dehumanizing for the sake of being used like a tool goes.] Not all of you are like that. You aren't. Billy isn't. Kate isn't. Not everyone thinks the unknown is an adversary, when it could be an adventure. As someone who's changed their mind from one to the other, it's easier than you think.

[Which is how Noh-Varr chooses to view what he's been up to, these days.

He gives his rocketship cup a moment's thought, thinking.]

Although before you boldly go where the rest of the universe has already been, you really should have a better grasp of physics, as a species. A spacecraft of this design would never actually get off the ground. No matter how cool it looks.

[ David lets out a chuckle as he takes a sip from his cup. ] Noh, I'm a black mutant. I don't think the unknown is the adversary because, nine times out of ten, I am the unknown adversary. Humanity's more often turning against itself than looking to the stars.

[ he shakes his head, hunching his shoulders. ]

Probably better for everyone that we haven't figured out interstellar travel. That a human planet stumbled across the secrets of interdimensional travel means nothing good for anyone.

No, it's-

[He takes a break to drain enough half of his rocket ship, thinking how to put this.]

When I was the Protector, early on I was asked to put together a functional space/time viewer for the Avengers. Tony Stark asked me if I would consider working for him, after that. But I couldn't. Even if I had wanted to, it would have been irresponsible to hand the secrets of the Kree Empire of another dimension, who had gone through the centuries of science and philosophy and engineering to make such a thing functional and efficient, to a species that hasn't even achieved truly large-scale travel outside of its own system.

[Of course, what's unsaid is that he gave that knowledge to David. Enough pieces of it, in a just in case kind of scenario.]

You shouldn't have things before you're ready to have them.

[And maybe, just maybe, they should all be very concerned about what's going on here.]

No, I understand what you're saying. And I agree. [ it's part of what made the difference between when he asked emma to unlock his mind and when the cuckoos offered. it wasn't just about losing his powers, he'd had a year to learn, to understand the costs, to make it less about his ambitions and dreams. and he's just one person. for a civilization as a whole to come to terms with that kind of lesson takes a lot more work. ]

I've seen the worst humanity has to offer, and it's not as rare as we like to pretend. We don't deserve the cosmos. Can you imagine what happens if they find a way to make that thing work the other way?

[ he looks at his drink with a frown before taking another sip, regretting that it's only coke. ]

[Noh-Varr gives him the sort of long, appraising look that means he has something he'd like to say, but he isn't sure if he should say it. It's a fine, fine line between wanting to talk with his friends and what he knows he shouldn't say, so they keep being friends. So he doesn't tell them something that they shouldn't know.]

Yes, David. I can.

But you still registered with them anyway.

[ the look david shoots him is knowing. maybe not so much knowing exactly what noh-varr is thinking right now, but at least on the registration issue. he has his doubts that the guy would join up without knowing everything he could get about the situation. not after osborn.

there has to be something more to that decision, and david's determined to find out what it is. he really needs to lighten up. ]

[closed] So if the feeling's right, then raise your glass and let's

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