The Legion [Mods] (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
letsgolegion) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
legionclubhouse2016-01-31 11:39 pm
letsgolegion) wrote in legionclubhouse2016-01-31 11:39 pm
Entry tags:
TEST DRIVE MEME
Pick a scenario!
Scenario A: Time for a stakeout! You and your partner have been tasked with staking out a place to catch a crime in progress. Maybe you're stuck somewhere comfy with snacks and a deck of cards. Maybe you're sitting somewhere on top of a building together in the rain, miserable and snapping at each other.
Perhaps you can use this time to get to know a stranger on the team better or maybe it's a time you can bond with someone you're hoping to be better friends with. Whatever the case, you've got to keep a close eye out and the only real entertainment you have is each other.
Scenario B: You're on the run! An evil totalitarian government got angry about the Legion nosing into some of their affairs and you and one of your teammates got captured. To avoid a terrible fate, you escaped and are now on the run on a hostile alien world full of urban areas swarming with agents looking for you, and dangerous wilderness. With your powers dampened by the power dampening collars on your necks, all you have to rely on is each other.
To make thing even worse, throughout it all, you're handcuffed together with nearly unbreakable cuffs. Yaaaaay. Maybe if you get far enough from the cities, you can hide out long enough for the other Legionnaires to find you.
Scenario C: Make up your own!
Marinette / Ladybug | Miraculous Ladybug
Ladybug could be called many things but "patient" was something that only worked when you put "occasionally" in front of it. She could sit quietly through class, and sit still while doing her homework, and she definitely knew how to sit still and concentrate when working on things she enjoyed, like her fashion design, but when she was Ladybug, when she was being a hero, there usually wasn't a whole lot of sitting still.
She was used to hero time being adventure time! Running around chasing akuma-ed people, or getting chased by them, or doing something. Her superhero life was usually a very active one and she didn't realize how used to that she'd gotten over time.
"It can't be much longer, right? I mean, I know this usually involves waiting." She pretended that she only knew about stake outs from TV. "It's just on TV usually there's the sitting part and then the exciting part where they chase the bad guys and catch them."
Marinette started tapping her fingers against the windowsill.
"We're probably at least getting close to that part, right?"
She put her elbow on the windowsill, propped her chin on her hand, and blew a few strands of hair out of her face.
"They're bound to do something soon."
She really should have brought some sewing to work on.
Scenario A: This was a very different kind of danger than what she was used to. Yes, the akuma-ed people she fought back home were very dangerous. They released wild animals, they threw cars, sometimes they tried to send her and Chat into space in bubbles that would run out of air.
Still, there was always some wiggle room for escape, and she always had her Lucky Charm power. Maybe it wasn't always obvious how it would fix the situation but it was a fix that she could almost always count on.
But her powers were different now and even if they hadn't been, she had this stupid collar around her neck.
She almost said something about how this was different from back home, about how it was so much more dangerous, but then she remembered that she was keeping all that a secret. She'd woken up in Legion World and pretended to be just Marinette Dupain-Cheng, and so Marinette she'd stayed.
It was a major pain in the posterior, being stuck doing that. As Ladybug, she knew how to do things, she was confident, and no one questioned it. But as Marinette she was awkward and it would've been strange for her to be confident and competent and act like she knew how to be a hero when she was pretending to just be a normal girl.
"Not that I have any experience doing things like this. At all," she said nervously as they ran, hoping that made it sound like she definitely didn't think she knew what she was doing, nope. "But maybe it'd be a good idea for us to hold each other's hands and try to match each other's pace so we're not pulling so hard on each other's arms?"
That was a normal suggestion for a normal person to make, wasn't it? One that didn't make it seem like she was maybe perhaps a superhero back home.
A
It wasn't all that long ago that he would have been fidgeting just as much as Marinette was, he recalled. As Speedball, every fiber of his being overflowed with kinetic energy, making him the personification of motion itself.
He'd grown up in the past year, though. Finding out you'd been responsible for the death of multiple children in another timeline, and ending up in a partly-broken world where half the people hated you did that to a person.
That didn't mean he wasn't still a goofball, though.
"You could do what I'm doing and pretend they're acting out a really bad soap opera. 'Oh Jean-Paul, I love you,'" he said in a high-falsetto before deepening his voice, "'Maria, my dear, I love you too, but we can never be together. For I am really five million hyper-intelligent ants in a man-suit.'"
no subject
She liked Robbie already. He was silly.
Ladybug liked silly. Even if it put her off a bit from like-liking Chat, she still enjoyed his goofiness as a friend. And her best friend Alya could get awfully silly sometimes, too, even if she tended towards being the level-headed one out of the two of them.
Joking around about what they were seeing definitely beat just sitting around watching and doing nothing. So she joined right in, clasping her hands together in an expression of unbridled emotion.
"But Jean-Paul, I lied to you, too! I'm actually...a flock of pigeons in a dress!"
She placed the back of her hand against her forehead, as if she was faint.
"Oh Jean-Paul, I want to still be with you but how can our love survive?! We're from two different worlds -- you, from an anthill, and I, from the park, where a man feeds me bread every other day and I steal croissants from unsuspecting tourists!"
She paused, then for the sake of character, she added a pigeon noise:
"Coo."
no subject
"Okay, okay-pfft" he said, trying, not very successfully, to get his laughter under control, "gi-give me a-ha sec here."
Getting a hold of himself, he gasped theatrically. "Another man? How could you? Were the crumbs I painstakingly gathered by relay not enough? Day in and day out we carried things 5000 times our own weight for you, and this is how you repay us?"
It'd been ages since he'd been able to just indulge his silly side with someone like this. Since before the TV show in fact, since the rest of the Warriors on that version of the team hadn't been the type for it. The merged world he'd arrived just afterward hadn't exactly been the place for it, either. He'd almost forgotten how much fun it was.
no subject
Then she gasped as if she was surprised it was him gathering crumbs all along.
"I swear he meant nothing to me! I thought the crumbs you gathered were just left there. I didn't realize you sacrificed so much for me."
She dropped to her knees from her chair and threw herself against the windowsill dramatically.
"All this time, it was you and I never knew! Oh, my love, please give me another chance! We can't give up on us. We can make this work."
She let out another despondent pigeon noise full of love and yearning. "Rou!"
no subject
no subject
"I'll keep watch."
no subject
"Sooo..keep doing the terrible, terrible show, or do you have any other ideas cooking up there?"
no subject
Instead of fighting, the two criminals were now sitting and reading magazines in the apartment, waiting for their third accomplice to show up -- which was when they'd jump into action.
Marinette sat there with her arms on the windowsill, resting her chin on them as she watched. Occasionally, she peeked over at Robbie curiously, before deciding to just speak her mind.
"I don't think I've seen you joke around that much before now. You always seem a little..." Not really serious, something else "--reserved."
Like he wasn't really angry or sad or overly serious, but like he was keeping to himself and holding something inside.
That was her impression anyway.
no subject
"I used to do it a lot, actually." Before the Cataclysm, before learning about Stamford, before having to hide himself under the mask of Ricochet.
"It's a long, complicated story, and it's not a fun one," he warned, in case she felt like pressing him about it.
"The short answer is I haven't had much to joke about recently, and I actually had to stop for a while for my own safety. The long answer actually involves time travel and alternate universes."
no subject
She figured it might be something serious and painful and if that was the case, maybe it was best for him not to say anything. She didn't want to pry too much.
At the same time, she didn't like it when people were sad, especially if they didn't seem to usually have downer personalities. And she wondered if it might help him to have a sympathetic ear.
"On the other hand, you can if you want to. I'm a good listener."
Maybe she wouldn't have any experience with the situation but she could still try to be kind after hearing it.
no subject
He looked back out the window, trying to collect his thoughts.
"Where this all starts is the fact that my home universe sort of merged with an earlier version of this one. That was this big, cosmic fight in space, and it ended with universes were in danger of being destroyed, so a pair of powerful, godlike entities pushed both of them together to save them."
"That's a thing you're probably going to have to get used to, by the way," Robbie added, unconsciously delaying the worst part of his tale. "Superpowerful beings with the ability to eat planets or alter reality are kind of common when dealing with space stuff. Nova sometimes ended up getting our team involved in it."
no subject
"That's hard to even wrap my head around."
That sounded almost...catastrophic. Even if they were saved.
"How did the world survive? How can two worlds survive as one? What happened to all the people?"
She had a feeling that she wasn't going to like the answer.
no subject
"No one's entirely sure what happened to all the other people up in space, but back home on earth? It was mass chaos. The population doubled overnight, countries and cities appeared where there weren't any before. My universe's New York, the New York from the other one, Metropolis, Gotham, both Phillies, became this huge giant kludge of a city." Robbie, while making a squishing motion with his hands to illustrate the idea, decided he wasn't going to use its unofficial name anywhere around Marinette.
"Overpopulation, food shortages, homelessness...and to top it all off most of the supervillains had stayed on Earth and we were stuck outside of time. It took us a year to start showing back up."
no subject
"You really weren't joking about the 'complicated.' That sounds awful."
That meant two Parises, probably all crammed together so there were too many people. That meant lots of people going hungry and probably fighting that she and Chat would've had to try to stop...
"It sounds like a nightmare."
How could something like that be fixed?
no subject
"Even with all that, I could've bounced back and rolled with it fairly easily. That's what I do. Literally and metaphorically. But, see, when we started returning, a few heroes didn't come back exactly the same way they left. While most of the people who went into space actually remembered going in the first place and everything else? Some of us, me included, were basically from different points in our personal timelines. We'd lost months, years of memories, and we were younger than when we left."
Robbie took a deep breath here. Everything else, he had a fairly good handle on. This was the hard part.
"The team Nova and I were on, the New Warriors? Back before all this, we'd been doing a reality show. We'd go around to small towns and helped get rid of supervillains that were trying to avoid places with a lot of heroes. The producers helped fund the whole thing in exchange for the right to film. The last thing I remembered before everything went to hell was us coming back off a hiatus."
He stared out the window, not really seeing it.
"Next thing I knew I was in the city, and I was missing about a year of memories. And in that year...I screwed up. The team was fighting this dude called Nitro, who has the power to explode. Wasn't really that much of a threat usually, but he'd been taking drugs to amplify his powers. We hadn't known that, and so I, the me that went through all this instead of time-travelling, egged the rest of the team into attacking Nitro head-on. He exploded, and took out the entire neighborhood, half of a nearby school and my entire team. I was the only one who survived."
Robbie wasn't breaking down. He'd talked through it multiple times, but while he could get through it, it wasn't entirely easy, and likely never would be.
no subject
And then she was basically completely overwhelmed by sympathy. Boom. Her heart exploded.
How horrible!
"So you lost your team -- your partners. And the people you were trying to save died."
She tried to imagine that, coming from some strange adventure to save the world only to find the world remembering her failure.
Only to find that her crime-fighting partner was dead and that it was partly her fault, even if she couldn't remember it, even if it hadn't happened yet for her.
No more Chat. No more stupid puns, and friendly jokes and him watching her back --
It was a thought she quickly had to stop thinking about because it made her heart want to break. Maybe he could be annoying sometimes but he was her friend and her partner and she couldn't even imagine what it would be like to walk into a world where he was suddenly gone and it was partly her fault that the world was that way.
Robbie had lost multiple friends and partners that way. And found out that people he'd tried to save died.
As she saw him staring at the window, blank-faced, she felt even worse. He looked so...resigned to it. And sad.
For a moment, she lifted her arms, almost wanting to give him a hug. She didn't know him well but in the time she had gotten to know him, she'd been able to tell he was a good person that cared about protecting people.
Then she just kind of froze like that, torn about what to do.
"I sort of want to hug you," she said, with her arms frozen like that. "But I don't want to do it if you'd think it was weird. But I really sort of want to."
no subject
"Really," he insisted, "I could use one. C'mere."
no subject
"I'm sorry," she said. "For everything you lost."
It was a lot to lose.
"But it's okay if you laugh, you know. I know I don't really know what it's like." She pulled away and pursed her lips together. "But I know that if the same happened to me and I lost my partn--my friend. One of my closest friends. If it was partly because of something I did, that he'd...I think he'd forgive me. And he'd want me to laugh. I bet your friends would've wanted that, too."
B
The Chat slips out automatically, and could he really be blamed? Dressed up like that, Marinette really did look just like Ladybug. Sounded like her, even, and it was all he could do not to tack a my lady onto that line. It was hard enough remembering not to call Marinette princess when he was suited up, because that definitely wasn't a nickname that Adrien should know about.
Still, he regretted saying it as soon as the words left his mouth. Even if he could shrug it off as just playing the part, Marinette could barely speak to him sometimes back home. Last thing they needed was her stumbling over her feet because he said something weird and kinda flirty.
no subject
On the other hand, it didn't sound like something he'd say. It sounded very...Chat. Was Adrien just playing around pretending to be like the real Chat?
(Since when did Adrien goof around like that? He seemed to have a decent enough sense of humor but he wasn't...goofy.)
"Uh...huh." She took his hand regardless and tugged him along, ignoring the fluttery feelings in her chest as she did it. They really, really had to keep running and not get distracted. They were running into the wilderness now and she had no idea what to expect. "That sure is a really good Chat impression."
That was maybe a compliment? Haha, he made a funny?
Then she realized that Perfectly Normal Girl (tm) Marinette Dupain-Cheng wouldn't really know what the real Chat Noir was like.
"Not that I know what the real one is like! Other than seeing him on TV! Annnd meeting him that one time when Nathanaël was akumatized. But I don't really know him know him."
no subject
He almost stumbled over a small shrub, and it was enough to distract him from Marinette's babbling denial. Not that babbling was anything new for her. He grips her hand tightly to steady himself, thinking quickly.
"Well, uh, I remember you said Chat Noir was pretty cool back then." Sorta. She'd kind of just babbled at him, but he thought she was trying to say that she thought he was cool. He as Chat Noir, that is. Though she might have said him as himself too? He really had no idea, to be honest. "I figured that meant he was funny."
Girls like funny, right? Most girls, anyway. Ladybug never seemed to appreciate his jokes, but that must have just been her, because his jokes were great.
no subject
This got harder and harder every day. It felt like the lies kept compounding, piling on top of each other, and sometimes she forgot who she was supposed to be and acted too much like Ladybug. Other times she almost forgot who he was because he reminded her of the real Chat. If only she'd started this whole thing as Ladybug instead of Marinette. Then maybe it wouldn't have been such a minefield.
But then that would've been complicated too, wouldn't it? How could she win over Adrien if she was Ladybug instead of Marinette?
"He was! Pretty great! But you don't really get to know someone after meeting them just one time? Not know them know them, you just know them...you know?"
She was babbling. She needed to stop babbling.
"But what I do know was he was funny and that means I know that your impression is...accurate."
If she hadn't been attached at the hand to Adrien she might have covered her face with both hands in exasperation at her own awkwardness.
"Anyway, we should probably keep a better eye on where we're goi--EEEEE!"
The word drew out into a shriek as they run through some bushes and suddenly found themselves on the edge of a slope. Marinette's momentum carried her right over the edge before she could stop herself and all she could do as they fell was grab Adrien and pull him into a roll with her so they rolled down it in a controlled way instead of in a way where they got hurt.
Fortunately, it wasn't altogether that steep and it was more grass and weeds than rocky scree and they rolled their way to the bottom without getting as banged up as they could have been. When they finally stopped rolling, Marinette was laying on top of Adrien, dazed as she pushed herself up slightly, still straddling him.
"--Going," she finally finished. "We should watch where we're going."
The long-suffering tone to her voice -- along with that slick move to avoid the two of them getting hurt -- well, that was a little Ladybug-ish, wasn't it? Just a little.
no subject
It wasn't, however, enough to just him up entirely, as he laid on his back for a moment and stared up at Marinette.
"...It appears you've fallen for me."
He couldn't help it. Maybe the jokes were intrinsically tied to the cat and he just couldn't turn them off anymore.
(Or maybe he was just a huge dork.)
no subject
WHY WAS HE DOING THIS IT WAS SO CONFUSING STOPMarinette was acutely aware of the fact she was currently straddling Adrien (Adrien) so when he said that, her face turned bright red and she quickly rolled off, accidentally yanking a little on the handcuffs as she did it.
"Sorry! Sorry."
She looked away, checking herself to make sure she wasn't hurt. When she went to unfold her wings, she winced and turned her body around, trying to look over her shoulder at them. One of them was bent, with a clear crease in it, and a few of the little clear membranes were broken.
"Great. I knew I couldn't carry us far, but I was hoping I could fly us short distances if we needed me to."
She tried to reach her hand around to unbend it but it was hard when it was behind her and one of her hands was handcuffed to Adrien's.
no subject
The amusement quickly faded away, however, when he got a look at her wing.
"Woah, hold on," He was all Adrien now, calm and serious and a little worried, and he caught her hands where she was trying but to twist around to get at her wing. "I'll try, alright? Just...let me know if it hurt or anything."
Even with one of his hands handcuffed to hers and thus limited by her range of motion, it was still easier for him to reach than it was for her. Adrien held her still by the shoulders for a moment before spinning her around as much as the handcuffs allowed and, so very gently, took the thin bent wing in his hand.
"It seems so delicate," he commented without thinking.
no subject
"I haven't hurt them that much but when I do, the broken parts fall off and then they just regrow. But they don't really have much feeling. Mostly just near where they meet my shoulders."
She was lying a tiny bit, especially since Adrien had his gentle voice on right now. She didn't want him to know that it actually a hurt a little bit, him straightening it out.
Just like she didn't want him to know that she could feel his hands on her wing just a tiny bit. A teeny tiny bit. She tried to ignore it.
no subject
Gingerly, like he was still worried about hurting her despite the reassurances, he unbent the wing and tried setting it straight again. The little broken membranes he couldn't do anything about beyond lightly smoothing them into place, but it was better than nothing.
"You think it'd be worth bandaging it or something?" Adrien asked, frowning thoughtfully. "Just to keep it still."
no subject
Now that her wing was straightened out, she bunched her wings up tight against her body, sliding them together so that they were tightly furled against her back, something she hadn't been able to do while the one was bent.
The only reason it'd even been damaged was because of the surprise of rolling down the hill. Her wings had been partly unfurled as they'd run. Now that it was fixed, she could fold them up properly again.
Marinette turned to face him again, relieved that she could stop twisting her cuffed wrist behind her back, and gave him a shy little smile for helping her.
"Thank you."
It was back to shy Marinette, apparently. The more assertive Ladybug of moments before was suddenly gone again.
...And then, just like that, she was back.
"We need to keep moving," she said, getting to her feet and grabbing Adrien's hand -- the one cuffed to hers -- to tug him to his feet. "It's going to be dark soon. We need to put some distance between us and them and find someplace safe to hide for the night."
It was like a million other moments of Ladybug pulling him to his feet after he'd been knocked down. (Just like all the moments he'd done the same for her). The expression on her face was even the same.