The Perk- Saturday afternoon

[throughaphase]

It had been a really lazy morning. Lazy enough in fact that Kitty hadn't even felt like making coffee. It was somehow less work to walk over to the Perk and have someone else make it for her than it was to just not leave her apartment.

She had her coffee, and she'd brought a book that she was largely ignoring in order to do some people-watching out the window. Which was a lot easier to do when people were outside the window.


[Open! Make the town slightly less quiet.]

Comments

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

What was this? A person not only walking past the window but then entering the coffee shop? Would wonders never cease?

After getting a coffee, Bruce took a seat. He had planned on reading business-type newspapers, you know the ones, with the business and the paper. But instead he turned to Kitty. "How's the book?" he checked. You know, the one she was largely ignoring.

You know.

[throughaphase]

Kitty looked down at her book, which she'd almost even forgotten about. "Open," she said. "I should probably try reading it?"

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"But if you do that, you'll miss all my clever comments and anecdotes," Bruce pointed out. "And I don't think I really want to talk to myself."

[throughaphase]

"Which is good, because I don't actually feel like reading," Kitty told him. "How are you?"

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"Overall, pretty good," Bruce said. "I'm a little stunned by how fast time is flying these days, though. I just realized that I've been in Fandom for almost a year now."

[throughaphase]

Huh. "...Seriously? How did that happen?"

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"I suspect it has a lot to do with the inexorable march of time," Bruce said. "I came here sometime in the middle of last summer and we've apparently just been busy since then."

[throughaphase]

"Well, we did have a few months of crisis," Kitty said. "It does make the time fly by..."

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"And I did basically lose a month there, turning into alternate versions of myself," Bruce said. "At least that's over and things are as normal as they ever are."

[throughaphase]

"So... only 'normal' if you've been here a while?" Kitty said with a little smile.

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"Don't forget, I went to school here," Bruce said. "My definition of 'normal' really isn't the traditional one."

[throughaphase]

"Yeah, I know. This place kind of warps your perception on that," she said. "And I don't come from somewhere normal to begin with."

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"Same here. That just means we had a head start on adjusting," Bruce said, raising his cup in a toast."

[throughaphase]

Kitty raised her coffee, too. "To not going completely insane when we got here."

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"I think I actually freaked people out when I was a teenager and didn't overreact to every bizarre change," Bruce noted. Of course, some of that may have been the fact that his method of dealing with those changes involved putting on a utility belt and kicking something in the face.

[throughaphase]

"It happens. 'What's that, the multiverse is disappearing? Let's play some D&D,'" Kitty shrugged.

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"I can't say I ever responded with role playing," Bruce said. "But I agree with the sentiment."

[throughaphase]

"Do you actually like it here?" she wondered, because that'd been on her mind lately. "With all the weird stuff that happens on a regular basis?"

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"Where I come from, people are regularly terrorized by a homicidal clown, a scientist who tries to freeze everyone every 8 months, and a mobster who decides who to kill by flipping a coin," Bruce said. "Fandom's a nice vacation from that."

[throughaphase]

"That sounds weirder than where I'm from," she said with a frown. "I think it's the clown."

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"I think that's fair," Bruce said. "Just imagine how the tourism board feels about him."

[throughaphase]

"Probably appeals to a very small niche?" Bright side?

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"The kind of niche he attracts means I have to donate more money to the police department," Bruce said with a sigh.

[throughaphase]

"Yeah, I can see where being here would be a good thing," Kitty said.

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"I'll be back there, soon," Bruce said. "I can take a year off to do something crazy like settle down here now and then, but then I have a corporate empire to get back to eventually."

[throughaphase]

"When there aren't killer clowns making everything difficult." Was that a shudder? Well it sounded creepy when phrased that way.

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"He breaks out of the asylum too often for that to be a reliable timeframe," Bruce said. "Probably more like after the first summer session. I've been giving some thought to teachinga workshop, but that'll probably be my last hurrah."

[throughaphase]

"That's sad," she said honestly. "But at least you have reason to visit. And get away from the weirdness by coming back to the weirdness."

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"I intend to leave the Wayne Foundation office as is, too," Bruce said. "I figure it could still be useful to people somehow."

[throughaphase]

"Oh, good. Especially if you have any kind of roots here. It's good to take advantage of that. Especially when there are any number of versions of Tony Stark who might contribute." She had a point.

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"It feels like we're almost due for a new version of him any day now," Bruce agreed. "I think both of my student employees are graduating, though. I'll have to do some recruiting before I do leave."

[throughaphase]

"I'd volunteer to help, but I'm kind of overtaxed as it is," she said honestly.

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"Is it anything you need help with?" Bruce checked. "Or just typical day to day business?"

[throughaphase]

"Managing a business plus teaching plus whatever radio stuff ever needs to be done, plus actually wanting to talk to people," she said. "I've got it, it's just hard to add anything else to it."

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"Maybe I'm the wrong person to say this considering that I've been here for a year instead of running a global corporation, but you work too hard," Bruce said with a laugh.

[throughaphase]

"Trust me, I know," Kitty sighed. "What're you gonna do."

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"I know it's rhetorical, but my answer is usually 'hire someone to do the worst of the work for me,'" Bruce answered.

[throughaphase]

"That's why I only tend bar once a week," Kitty smiled.

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"That's more like it," Bruce said.