Now that you've been broken down, Got your head out of the clouds
WHO: Hal Tighten and Roxanne
WHERE: A little coffee shop by her workplace
WHEN: Thursday morning
WARNINGS: Hal's a creeper and doesn't take "no" well.
SUMMARY: Hal meets Roxanne for a coffee date. Roxanne meets Hal to say "back off." This should go well.
FORMAT: Whatever works
( Behind the cut, an unintentional wall of text )
WHERE: A little coffee shop by her workplace
WHEN: Thursday morning
WARNINGS: Hal's a creeper and doesn't take "no" well.
SUMMARY: Hal meets Roxanne for a coffee date. Roxanne meets Hal to say "back off." This should go well.
FORMAT: Whatever works
( Behind the cut, an unintentional wall of text )
Now, messaging Spider-Man to be in the area in case something went wrong seemed like a terribly sensible thing, and she was glad she had the forethought to so do.
She takes a breath, steels herself. Her watch is on and activated -- the idea of picking up his emotions is repugnant; she needs her head to belong to just her for this. She opens the door, and steps inside, heels clicking on the tiled floor as she approaches.
"Hal. You ... shouldn't have." She -- touches the flowers, smile tight, and then gently sets them aside.
One of the little cafe's waitresses comes by, and she gets a very simple, if sweet, mocha, and lets Hal order before she moves on. "We-- need to catch up a bit, don't we?"
Seriously, she needed a better game plan for this.
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Seeing her come in, he jolts upright and beams a brighter smile than is strictly appropriate. He just manages not to fall off the seat; he's still not entirely used to the changes in his body, especially when excited.
"Oh, that? That was nothing, it didn't cost anythi--I mean, it was just a little quick thing." Hal does, at least, pick up the lack of appreciative sniff. If a girl doesn't make a point of sniffing them and smiling, she's not excited by the gift.
An empty cup sits to the side with his discarded handheld, so he orders a replacement; a large espresso drink, with plenty of sugar in it.
"Ha, yeah, we barely talked, and then it was like you vanished off the face of the planet, after I first got here. So like, what's up? How long have you even been here?" The excitement over talking and having coffee is enough to override the bitterness. Mostly.
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"Three months, Hal. Long enough to get established in a new job, make a few friends, that sort of thing," she replies; thankfully, the coffees don't take long to prep -- especially since she didn't ask for anything particularly fancy, and neither did he.
She takes a sip of her coffee-- like she needs more caffeine after her first cup this morning-- and then says, "From the look of you, I'm guessing... it was about June when you left Metro City? Middle of summer, everything nice. It's -- September, when I last left."
Hopefully he can understand what she means there: that she's a good three months in his future. She's not making the same offer to him that Megamind got. Unlike Megamind, Hal needs to be TOLD not to be that guy-- to be told that he has no chance, and not in shock and fear and upset.
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He puzzles out her remarks for a moment. "So, like, you got taken from home later than me, but you got here before me? That's messed up."
A few people alluded to the paradoxes of time passing unaffected by their abductions, but Hal really did not follow what they were saying. He can only conclude that Roxanne was left without him for several months at home, and then another few months here. She would have gone all this time, alone in a strange place, without even knowing about his secret identity. It was no wonder she hadn't tried to get in touch with him sooner! It would have been weird for her to try, since it would only remind her of her loneliness. Good thing he was here now.
"That sucks...! That you were here, all alone, I mean. And still getting kidnapped! It's too bad there wasn't some, like, amazing superhero to stop all of that, huh?"
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She lets those three words sink in, before she moves on.
"I know about Titan, Hal. I know about Titan, and about Space Dad and all that. I know why you did it, and I know -- I know everything, Hal. Which is why I wanted to talk to you," she said in that serious, important and heartfelt tone that indicated that in no way shape or form had she fallen into Titan's arms and swooned at any point of those three months that she had lived on and he had not.
She knew this getting into dangerous waters. Her coffee arrived and she didn't touch it.
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"You know about Tighten..? But, but that was all a secret, I didn't even show you anything yet."
Way to spoil the surprise, Roxanne. Jeez. Can't a guy have a present in his closet without a girl stumbling in on it and ruining the fun?
Hal genuinely doesn't realize that, back home, time passes as though he was never abducted to the City. The idea that she refuses him is nowhere in his head; the closest to a theory he has is that maybe random people were calling in sightings of the flying figure in the City, and she investigated in his absence. Her solemn tone is lost on him so far.
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She-- is really sick of that eternal struggle, from the way her voice get sharp. But that's not the time and place for it, is it?
Coming back from the edge of anger-- doesnt' do her any good to get angry nw--she takes up her drink, finally sips at it, before she sets it down.
"Do you understand? I know everything that happens. Everything you want to tell me, you already have. Everything you wanted to do, you've done. Which is why I'm bringing you a warning from a future, Hal, because I know -- you could be a good guy," she says. "But being a good guy is work. Hard work. And the good guy doesn't always get the girl, either."
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"Oh, man, this is like, time travel crap, or alternate universes or whatever, right? It didn't happen for me, but it happened for you, so you're acting like it was all totally real? Okay, fine, I'll listen."
Her enigmatic remarks about the eternal struggle and her helping with Megamind's plan for some reason, Hal disregards. The important thing here is that Roxanne knows, and is solemn and sitting on the opposite side of the table, without anything like the friendliness she should be showing to the guy she cares about.
So something goes wrong in the future. Something that leaves her the most unhappy with him that he's ever seen.
"A warning, huh? What did this future-me do, anyway, that you've got to warn me?" Hal asks, challenging her to convince him. He doesn't hide his indignant annoyance, still not quite convinced that they're having this chat over their coffees.
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"You don't get what you want. Heroics is hard. Not a lot of reward. And with your primary motivation on someone else's arm you do something very foolish. You hurt and scare people, Hal. You become the bad guy. I don't want to see that happen to you here, Hal."
But there's that unspoken thread there, through this whole conversation, that he's sure to grasp -- even if he doesn't get anything else that's being said to him: I'm with someone else and it isn't you, and I'm not willing to sacrifice that to keep you good.
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"What, like I'm not a good guy, right now? That computer thing grabbed me to be a hero. That's what good guys are, right?"
Without waiting for a response, Hal readies himself to continue complaining. The sheer ridiculousness of the idea that being a hero is purely work, especially when Space Dad isn't around to critique him, is ridiculous. Metroman was messing up plenty, to go by how many times Roxanne got kidnapped, and he got a museum and conferences and all kinds of women swooning over him. And Roxanne thinks there's no rewards in it?
And then he notices the unspoken thread, the one she hints at with on someone else's arm.
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His voice shakes a little as he asks, "Whoa. Wait. What are you saying?"
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She doesn't say she's sorry. She's not sorry for failing to fall into his fantasy. She's not sorry for not returning his affection. She's not sorry for any of it.
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In the fine line of disgusting creepers everywhere, Hal tries to be a Nice Guy and shrug off the lack of apology. He's sure she hasn't properly thought through what a terrible person she is for rejecting him. All he needs to do is get her to understand it.
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Never let her down.
Until he did.
"He was still twice the man you will ever be, if you want to be frank," she says, getting sharp. "He was there for me when I needed him, and I did the same for him. You have no right to bring him up to me, ever."
She gave him a chance-- but while she might let Megamind make her feel a little guilty about his richly deserved dumping, Hal has no such power over her. If she has to break out the cluebat, she will... she just ha to hope that she won't regret it.
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"And, you are being stupidously unfair. You keep talking like I'm the bad guy who hurt you, but I didn't do anything to you!" His voice raises and his eyes light up. It's unintentional, though, so it probably doesn't count as harm. Hal pauses anyway, takes a deep breath, and quieted again.
"You should remember that before blaming me for whatever you think you've been through."
He sits back, crossing his arms, awaiting his clearly deserved apology.
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Because she saw him do it. Oh, he never found the new girl, but all the same, as soon as he was rejected -- he turned on her like a viper. But she goes-- very still, when she sees the familiar flare of laser vision. Everything stops for a few seconds, her hands flat on the table, body tensed and ready to bolt. He's angry. Too angry. But there's no backing down. She can't. Or he'll press and press and press and it will only get worse.
She can't be afraid of him. Or he will have her -- if not possess her, he'll have her running, and Roxanne is tired of running from superpowered assholes.
"I know what I've been through. And I know who was there for me when it was happening, and when it was over. And it wasn't you. Just like you tried to get me alone when Metro Man wasn't even cold in his--" imaginary-- "grave. Wedding photographer, Hal?"
She can't even begin to mask her contempt now, but she's gone highwire tense.
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