003 - [Video] Happy Birthday, Chloe Price.

[helladoomed]

[It's a little after noon when Chloe turns her communicator on. She's sitting on an old white plastic deck chair, and from the look of the buildings behind her, probably on a roof somewhere in Nonah. She's in a worn old white tanktop with a skull on the front, her jeans-covered legs propped up on something, her coat hanging off the back of her chair. She's spent the morning avoiding people, not answering her texts, just...brooding. There's a cigarette between her lips, and she takes a drag off it before she catches it with her other hand, her attention mostly on the phone.]

You ever think about time 'n shit? Like, how it hella doesn't make any sense here? Like, okay, back home, before I wound up here, it was 2013 right? In October.

[She leans back in her chair, resting the phone on her leg, tilted up so all the screen really catches is her face and neck and the clouds.]

Suddenly I'm here, it's three years and a couple months later. Just, wham, welcome to the future except it's a weird fucked up cold war version of the future. And I get like, it's way worse for other people, right? Pulled from other centuries or other fuckin' planets with their own weird-ass calendars but.

Three years.

[She's not even really sure what she's going on about, honestly. She'd been puzzling this over in her head all morning and hadn't gotten anywhere, so maybe she thought rambling out loud would help. It wasn't really working.]

So here we are, right? March 11th, 2016. Shit had gone different, I'd be twenty-two today.

[She hesitates, her gaze distant, up on the clouds as she took another puff off her cigarette.]

Instead, I guess I'm twenty. Sort of. Minus a couple months. Still my birthday though. [And then she smirks, pointing the two fingers holding her cigarette at the sky.] Fuck you, universe. Chloe Price made it to twenty after all.

[She scooped up the phone again, and for a second is framed in the picture again, the camera half-covered by her thumb as she reaches for the disconnect. Her voice is quieter again.]

Didn't see that comin'.

[Click.]

Comments

[notyourfathersosborn]

Something like that.

With everything that's been going on with the Soviets, and before that the crap with my grandfather, the last couple months were kind of a blur.

[helladoomed]

Yeah I feel that. I only got here in February, and...man.

Hell of a month.

[notyourfathersosborn]

Oh man, yeah. This was really not the month to get sent here.

There's usually some sort of pandemonium going on, but it's usually not that... intense.

[helladoomed]

Heh. That's one way to put it.

I got brain tazed.

[notyourfathersosborn]

Wait, what?

[helladoomed]

The Russians.

When I wasn't a good girl and didn't show up to class, they set off a taser in my brain.

[notyourfathersosborn]

Oh jesus... I'd heard stories that they did that, but I thought it was just propaganda.

Are you all right??

[helladoomed]

Nope.

[She shrugs.]

When I think about it too much, hey, there's always booze.

[notyourfathersosborn]

That's not really...

[Normie closes his mouth. That's not for him to say.]

Hey, I know I'm a total stranger, but if you ever want to talk to someone, I've been told I'm a decent listener.

[helladoomed]

Never said I was doing anything healthy.

[She smirks.]

I think I'm good man. But thanks.

[notyourfathersosborn]

Hey, at least you're not putting on a costume and throwing little pumpkin-shaped bombs at random people. That's unhealthy.

[Normie shrugs.]

Standing offer.

[helladoomed]

...That is weirdly specific, man.

[notyourfathersosborn]

...My family weren't exactly the poster children of mental health.

Heh.

[helladoomed]

Neither was mine but still. Jesus, man.

[notyourfathersosborn]

Things get more colorful when you live in a world full of superheroes.

Literally.

[helladoomed]

Guess that makes sense. Nervous breakdowns involving superpowers are probably way messier.

[notyourfathersosborn]

It makes everything messier. You never know if some superhero/villain fight is going to take out your favorite deli, or the library, or your school.

Sometimes you watch the fights praying they'll take out your school.

[Not that it really slowed the education process down. By the time Normie was growing up, they practically had "what to do in case of superhero demolition" written into the curriculums.]

[helladoomed]

Huh. I guess I never thought about that.

Superman fighting like, Bizarro superman or something probably totally wrecks up the city, huh?

[notyourfathersosborn]

I'm guessing that's some kind of superhero/supervillain combo... And yes. Oh my goodness yes. Right before I left the Hulk appeared for the first time in years under some kind of Loki mind control or something and the ensuing fight took out most of Bleecker Street.

[Normie's expression darkens. The fight also killed Captain America.]

[helladoomed]

You've never heard of Superman?

[Didn't everyone know who Superman was?]

Oh I've heard of the Hulk. Not a great movie but not bad.

[notyourfathersosborn]

I've heard of him. I mean he was here for a bit when I first got here, but I can't say I'm too familiar with him or his enemies.

[Normie blinks.]

Wait, the Hulk got his own movie in your universe?

[A pause.]

Wait, your universe has heard of the Hulk?