She recognized him from their conversation in the rec room the last time, but now the tables were turned and he didn't look half as calm as she must have the day they met. "What's in there?" she couldn't help asking when her curiosity refused to sway.
"Comics," Brodie said, not looking up just yet, "What's it look like?"
He put another board in his copy of Detective Comics #27 and put it back in the box with the rest. First appearance of Batman, it DEFINITELY belonged there.
"Some of us have never experienced a comic in our lives," she reminded him, a bit of an arch tone in her voice because if he thought she was just going to wilt, he was sorely mistaken. "Why is there a box of them? And why are you just adding to it?"
Brodie sighed. Well, at least if this chick was going to learn about comics, he was the one doing the teaching.
"I'm organizing them. This is a bag, and this is a board," he answered, showing her the two things in turn, "They keep comics from getting fucked up. You don't want them to get bent and shit. And this box itself is for the most important ones."
Because fuck only knew when another space station was gonna fall out of the sky, or when the dinosaurs were going to invade the compound or some shit. He didn't want to have to deal with a goddamn velociraptor going to town on his rare Adventure Comics issues.
Brodie didn't look up right away, and instead, picked up two comics from his pile, both meticulously bagged and boarded and held them up for her to see. "Which one? First appearance of Penguin or Two-Face?" he asked, knowing that Rogue probably didn't have any fucking idea what he was talking about.
But asking her about his comic collection was a fuck of a lot better than telling her the shit that had gone down earlier.
"Two-Face," she said, "always could appreciate that li'l problem o'Harvey's more than Ah could a fella looks 'n acts like a penguin. Just weird." She slid down to sit on the couch beside him, carefully moving a few issues to one side. She watched him sidelong. He seemed serious.
"Good point," Brodie said, then added the Two-Face issue to the box, leaving Penguin on the reject pile. Sure, it was still a pretty important comic, but in the case of another fucking island catastrophe, he'd only ever be able to carry the one box. Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot was gonna have to perish with the rest of the collection.
"Whatcha got?" Karen asked, not bothering with a greeting as she sat down on the couch next to Brodie. She leaned over his arm in an attempt to get a good look at the box. "Comics? Surprise."
"Jesus. It's getting so a guy can't put together an emergency box of comics without someone giving him shit for it," Brodie said, but he didn't look up at Karen just yet. She'd been through this shit enough times that Brodie was getting tired of being Mr. Sensitive about it all. Not that he was an insensitive shit or anything, it just seemed to happen to Karen a fuck of a lot more than it happened to him.
"Do you really think I could go on without giving you shit about comics?" Karen sat back, putting her feet up on the table beside his box. "I'm almost physically incapable of doing that."
Karen talking about giving him shit about his comics made him NOT want to leave them all to her in the event of his own disappearance.
"It's a new year, maybe you should make it a resolution. 'In 2011 I'll stop giving Brodie shit about his comics. And start walking around topless more often.'" That'd be a resolution that the entire island could get behind.
"Is that especially wise?" asked Jamie, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his trenchchoat. He stood in front of Brodie and his box, craning his neck a little to get a better look at the contents.
"Doing that in here, I mean," he clarified, dropping down into a crouch. He resisted the impulse to pick up one of the comics, his gaze turning upwards instead. "Not everyone's been given the 'the existence of infinite universes means the occasional cosmic coincidence' lecture yet, and I'd hate to see you get punched in the face by some ignorant cape, just 'cause you were poking around in their private life."
"Been there, done that," Brodie replied, only looking up at Jamie for a second before he went back to alphabetizing. Thank fuck there weren't a lot of X-titles in his emergency comics, because he never knew whether to organize those by relevance or title.
"Had a bruise for almost a month when Rogue decked me."
Jamie stifled a snort. He almost wished he could've been around to see that, not because he wished Brodie harm, so much as it made for a funny mental image.
"I see you've learned your lesson," he said dryly.
Truthfully, while Eden couldn't hold their break up against Brodie even if it hadn't been years ago, she didn't make much of a habit of spending time around him these days. So maybe it was the recurring thought of how many people she'd lost, emphasized by the mass near-death experience the other day, that brought her over to his side. Cutting someone out while they were still around was just plain stupid. "What are these ones?"
"Emergency comics," Brodie said, looking up at Eden for a second before he went back to organizing. He didn't talk to her all that often since they'd broken up, but he didn't hate her or anything. At least she hadn't written him a fucking LETTER like Rene had, calling him 'callow' or whatever.
"Island catastrophe, there's not gonna be enough time to save them all. Collection's pretty big now."
"Most of the catastrophes around here," Eden said, "you even gonna be able to get it out of the way?" There was too little warning most of the time for that, but then, better he be prepared with his personal essentials just in case anyway. She still didn't know all that much about comics, but she'd retained some of what she'd picked up around him, and she leaned forward to look at the contents without touching. "So what've you got?"
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He put another board in his copy of Detective Comics #27 and put it back in the box with the rest. First appearance of Batman, it DEFINITELY belonged there.
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"I'm organizing them. This is a bag, and this is a board," he answered, showing her the two things in turn, "They keep comics from getting fucked up. You don't want them to get bent and shit. And this box itself is for the most important ones."
Because fuck only knew when another space station was gonna fall out of the sky, or when the dinosaurs were going to invade the compound or some shit. He didn't want to have to deal with a goddamn velociraptor going to town on his rare Adventure Comics issues.
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"Lookin' awful pensive, sugar."
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But asking her about his comic collection was a fuck of a lot better than telling her the shit that had gone down earlier.
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"But that's just me."
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"Wait. Since when do YOU know Two-Face?"
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Karma was a bitch.
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"It's a new year, maybe you should make it a resolution. 'In 2011 I'll stop giving Brodie shit about his comics. And start walking around topless more often.'" That'd be a resolution that the entire island could get behind.
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"Doing that in here, I mean," he clarified, dropping down into a crouch. He resisted the impulse to pick up one of the comics, his gaze turning upwards instead. "Not everyone's been given the 'the existence of infinite universes means the occasional cosmic coincidence' lecture yet, and I'd hate to see you get punched in the face by some ignorant cape, just 'cause you were poking around in their private life."
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"Had a bruise for almost a month when Rogue decked me."
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"I see you've learned your lesson," he said dryly.
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"Island catastrophe, there's not gonna be enough time to save them all. Collection's pretty big now."
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