New and improved angel, now 100% less blood-spattered, no matter what the icon shows!
First there is the business of seating himself. Bartleby clearly doesn't spend a lot of time with his wings out or he wouldn't try to sit on a couch. Or a chair. Or anything with, you know, a back. Finally he settles (wobbly, but settled!) on a stool
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"Ok. Not that I really feel guilty about this anymore... ok, maybe I do feel some guilt, it's not the kind of thing you can really easily sweep under the mental Carpet of Denial, right? And it sort of wasn't really me that did it, although it was me... I think... and it wasn't entirely my fault, because I was manipulated. But I guess it was my fault, taking responsibility is important, right? And... um..."
Eyeshift.
"I sort of destroyed an entire solar system inhabited by sentient beings."
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Bartleby will take her hand if allowed, and it's like the moment you step inside from tussling in the snow: not hot (except your face is red) and not cold (although you might be shivering), the transition seems caught in a smarting moment of temperatureless-ness. And it's just as fleeting, in the face of all she is.
"Sometimes, I think we've all been there," he says, lightly, if literally, in his case. "It's only as a representation of something more than ourselves that we reach that kind of moment, but we are there, and we're left with the pieces, too. How's the clean up been going?"
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"Well, not everyone's been there. Otherwise we'd be pretty short on inhabited solar systems. But it sure would be easier for me if that was true. I show a little fire, come back from the dead again, and people get all weird around me. Like I'm going to disintegrate them or something, which I'm not... ok, maybe Emma... I have a grip now, you know?"
Exhale. She assumes he's talking about Operation: Pick Up Phoenix, since he's an angel, and they know everything.
"The clean up has been keeping me pretty busy. That, and dodging Shi'ar battlecruisers. I swear, those people hold a grudge forever."
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"It's funny that you say 'grip', because maybe it's just me, but I try to carry the sentence on to a natural conclusion, and I'm thinking like: a grip on a weapon. A grip on a tree branch so you won't fall. When you're holding someone's hand. To say you have a grip on something is a difficult promise to accept as comfort. Now it's not just that they're afraid of your power, they're afraid of losing you. But the last one doesn't sound so bad, the hand holding. Maybe that's what they need to be shown."
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"But, I can't guarantee that either, because I'm known for two things... occasionally going crazy and eating a sun, and dying often. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to do the first one again, but I am slowly coming to accept that I am a death magnet. And my friends and family are really, really sick of that... they've told me as much. Which, you know, I completely understand. It costs a fortune in tombstones alone. So, I don't know what to do the next time I come back besides reduce Emma to a smoldering, sparkly pile of ashes. Should I just avoid them entirely? Change my name and work as a social director on a cruise ship? Or would that just make me responsible for everyone else on the boat when it sails into an uncharted underwater volcano or maybe an unscheduled supervillain incident? I just don't know what to do with my afterlife here!"
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