[Wednesday, October 15th. 2:45 PM] [In the aftermath of the battle against Set, Jacky is still at the scene, picking up the pieces of her broken robot, it having been rather thoroughly demolished in Set's last attack.] [Lt. Stone and SPLEE-NY were first on scene, and after a little cajoling, Jacky has managed to give him to give her a bit of unmolested time to salvage what she can before crime scene and other emergency personel get on site, since preliminary scans found no evidence of casualties.] [And so, aside from a few SPLEE-NY officers here and there, some in power armor, some not, Jacky has the area to herself.] [For the moment.] [Mini Start] * TheRedcoat returns to the scene of the crii---confrontation. Confrontation. Yes. And walks over to Jackie and the pile of bot pieces. "Can I help?" * Jacqueline is, because she despises the very idea of manual labor, actually doing her 'recovery' by sitting in a beach chair composed of a metal frame and bands of flexible plasma, with earbuds in her ears and a hover truck moving things from the battlefield to a convenient drop-off location some distance away. * Jacqueline quirks an eyebrow at the Redcoat's approach, and then makes a low noise of amusement and asks, "Didn't you help enough?" * TheRedcoat shrugs, a little embarrassedly. "Which is why I'm offering. I wouldn't have chosen your robot as the site of my ricochet if there were any other choice." * TheRedcoat looks out across the pieces of bot strewn on the plain. "I was serious about offering to make a weekend of helping you fix it, by the way....even if the repairs will be more, ah, extensive than I originally imagined." * TheRedcoat lights a cigarette. * Jacqueline heaves a put-upon sigh as she gestures vaguely towards the hover truck. "I don't know /what/ you'd do, but I suppose you could sit, for now. I'm just going to fold its pieces into one just like it and save the rest for later, anyway." Perhaps the next time, you could use Christian for your richochet point, though. * TheRedcoat half-shrugs and sits. "I thought about it, but I've seen him punch." I'm not nearly at your level--I doubt anyone is--but I'm fairly good with mechanical work. * Jacqueline withdraws a long, coiled, sectioned cylinder of metal from a hook inside of her lab coat and hands it over to Redcoat. "Perhaps the Eternal Warrior, if he's present, then?" Beat. "Feel free to unfold it and turn it on." We shall have to see. We wouldn't want to give me reason to need to kill you, after all. * TheRedcoat looks at it, and does as told. "Thank you. And perhaps. Not that I hate him as much as you do, but he is rather more sturdy." * TheRedcoat laughs softly. "No, we wouldn't." Beat. "I would like to do something to help make up for it, however." * Jacqueline 's cylinder is something like a puzzle; certain parts lock and articulate in a limited range, others don't, but all in all getting something like Jackie's seat is far from impossible. And the switch to activate the plasma slats is an obvious one, besides. "Well. I'd imagine killing the Eternal Warrior is out. Proprietary secrets are also something of a no go; I wonder where that leaves us?" * Jacqueline is, in saying this, dry enough that it's probably a joke. * TheRedcoat manages to figure it out. "I could bring over some vodka, we can talk about the oddness of being referred to as a 'hero'." Or we could sneak into the training rooms and demolish random enemies. * TheRedcoat shrugs...awkwardly? Whoa. "I'm...not very good at this 'superhero interaction' thing." I /have/ been meaning to make use of them. But I've been pre-occupied. * Jacqueline looks over at the Redcoat with a thin smile. "Don't worry. You shall adjust." I've been doing this for a number of years. It's rather a matter of time. * TheRedcoat leans back in the seat. "I suppose. I wonder if I'll have as many years?" * Jacqueline clucks her tongue softly. "Well, that's rather up to you, isn't it? But it's not so difficult, once you've gotten past the outright bigotry and the like." * TheRedcoat hehs. "That too." * TheRedcoat cracks her neck with another puff of cigarette. "It's very...wrong, but I find myself almost...not hating this current situation, just because I have to deal with fewer...bad attitudes." And...the ones that are left are for the most part too fraught to be irritating. Well, except for American Dream, but he's dead now, so. * Jacqueline 's smile broadens at the mention of bad attitudes. "I am having a party in several days to celebrate our unexpected windfall in the form of one less embarrassing mistake for this country as a whole, speaking of." You are, I suppose, invited; personally, I'm all for things being the way they are now. They wouldn't have appreciated me any other way. * TheRedcoat grins. "I'm honored. I will be there." And I quite agree. * TheRedcoat scratches the back of her neck. "I'm glad they do. It's good to have you around on the team." You and Mizuki, both. Horus and Christian are sweet children, and very usefully powerful, but rather... touchy. * TheRedcoat half-grins. "And they don't have your sense of humor." * Jacqueline quirks an eyebrow and casts her eyes silently over Redcoat for a little while before clucking her tongue gently. "Few do." She turns her eyes away and then reaches up to lower her goggles in place so that she can continue keeping an eye on Redcoat via its 360 display. "Wherever /did/ you come from? Surely, not 'the streets' the same way that the boy did." * TheRedcoat looks off into the distance. "Originally? Russia." Ah. There must have been a wealth of 'bad attitudes' to be had. * TheRedcoat chuckles. "When...I decided to go for the crime-fighting instead of the crime-causing? Oh, yes." * Jacqueline faintly smirks. "As I said; bigotry. A shame that the former never pays nearly so well as the latter." * TheRedcoat sighhhhs. "Tell me about it." * TheRedcoat gets a faraway look in her eyes. "I remember the ransom they paid me for the Hope Diamond...and for keeping the Hope Diamond thing quiet while it was gone..." * TheRedcoat sighs again. "Good times." * Jacqueline gestures vaguely towards a pile of robot parts as she mutters, "Bending the Pentagon into a hexagon for a day financed the first of those in the seventies." Beat. "Technically, I'd have done it for free, but I know opportunity when I see it." * TheRedcoat nods. "Honestly, at the end there it wasn't even about the money anymore, it was about the challenge." ...not that I stopped *charging*, of course. Of course. * Jacqueline softly sighs and mutters, "It was never /really/ about the money, but it's difficult not to miss it /now/. Rather how it works." * TheRedcoat nods. "Yes. It's almost a shame." Of course, there is quite something to be said for being funded by the same people who expended so very much effort to keep me at arm's length; I suppose it balances out * TheRedcoat chuckles. "Reparations, almost?" * Jacqueline smirks. "Precisely, but my mule is fusion powered." * TheRedcoat smirks back and raises her cigarette in a faux-toast. "Ah, the life of the future." * Jacqueline has nothing to toast, unfortunately, but she can at the least offer a small nod of agreement. "The future. Today. Whichever; who really wants to wait for tomorrow to come around, given a choice?" * TheRedcoat laughs under her breath. "I've certainly never been one to do so." * TheRedcoat glances over at Jackie. "So what does one bring to a Death of An Asshole party, anyway?" [And so, party specifics were hopefully had, and so was a conversation. Mini end!]