2013.07.14 - Visiting Jimmy

Jimmy Olsen has had A Day as they say. It started off with almost falling out of a helicopter and went downhill from there. So now, he's coming out of the bedroom, barefoot, hair still damp from a shower, all dressed down in a tank-top and shorts. He picks up a magazine from the back of the couch, tosses it onto the 'donate' box by the door, and heads into the kitchenette to see what's in the fridge.
There is a knock at the --- well, not at the door, but at the window. Only in this city could that mean someone is actually *at* the window as opposed to, say, suicidal pigeons.
There is, in fact, a purple cat standing outside the window. Perched upon a platform in mid-air, in fact.
 
'And this is my life', Olsen thinks to himself, as he comes out of the fridge with a bottle of chilled coffe-like beverage. He sets it back in, walks over to tap the security alarm, and open the window. Of course he has windows that open when no-one else in the building does - a little engineering gift from Superman, as it were. "Keith, um, hey, come on in," he says, thumb indicating he should just hop in. "Long way from Gotham, aren't you?"
"Hey Jimmy-- are you sure it's ok? I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd hop by and see how you were doing." He smiles, not hopping in until he's assured it's not an imposition "I don't... actually patrol Gotham if I can help it."
"And I don't blame you," Olsen says as he steps aside. "And no, it's really fine. Just about to figure out what to do for the night."
"I don't need to ask you if you've heard about what happened at Arkham... I'm having a hard time going out in public with that hanging around my neck. How have you been, though?" The cat says, stretching after he lands.
Jimmy Olsen gives the young hero a sympathetic look as he walks back into the kitchenette. "Been doing pretty good, just got back from an assignment in London which was pretty cool. You want a beer? You sound like you could use one," he says, opening the fridge and looking back to the catboy. 
Vorpal hehs and follows Jimmy. "Nah, I'm not of age yet. I don't know what alcohol does to my powers... but since I'm apparently created by chaos, it might not be a good idea." he winks. "London? how was that? The farthest I've been is... er New Orleans with your buddy." the cat chuckles. "If you have a soda, I'll have that, though."
Jimmy Olsen pulls out his previously-selected coffee and then hands a cold soda over to Vorpal. "We won't find out, then," he says. "Sorry, it's a little hard to tell how young you might be, with the coloring. And London was crowded, hot, smelly, and had traffic jams that went on for ages, but I did score a sweet poster at Forbidden Planet." He points to a black-and-white poster of Captain America and Bucky back in the WW2 days.
Vorpal takes the soda, nodding. "I know, people seem to think I'm either twenty five or fourteen..." he looks at the poster, oohing at it. "You know... Superman could get Captain America to sign that for you. He was there in New Orleans too. We fought this super-zombie type creature... but I didn't really talk to him before or after the zombie wave. I felt pretty much out of my league. Superman and The Cap probably could have done all the work." He comes closer to look at the poster, admiring it.
Jimmy Olsen flashes a smile as he moves to sit on the couch, looking to the side at Vorpal and his new acquisition. "I might look into that, but I've only been near Captain America a handful of times, mostly at press conferences or Avengers lineup announcements. And, man.. don't let Superman hear you say that." He pauses. "Of course, he probably just did, but... anyway, I think it makes him kind of uneasy."
Vorpal goes and sits down on the couch next to Jimmy, sipping his soda "... I wouldn't tell him. Heck, I could barely even speak to the man without being nervous. And then after Baron Samedi was defeated there wasn't much opportunity to talk, because of what happened to Aquaman's hand..." he shudders, "I wish I knew how he is recovering."
Jimmy Olsen shakes his head. "I hadn't heard?" he says, sipping his own drink, feet up on the coffee table. On the muted flatscreen, various scenes from news feeds around the world play out, changing every couple of minutes or so. "What happened to him?"
Vorpal leans back against the seat. "Baron Samedi sliced his hand off, Jimmy. Green Lantern was there, but his ring had run out of power, and nobody could heal it in time. I think he may have lost it." He grimaces. "Superman looked very shaken at that. You're his friend... I dunno, maybe you could chat with him and see how he's doing? I'm kinda the nobody on the fringes. I don't approach any big names unless there's a reason... I don't like making a nuisance of myself, you know?" Sip.
Jimmy Olsen closes his eyes and shakes his head slowly. "Wow, I didn't know. I will talk to him; thanks." He glances out at the city beyond the window. "I'll tell him you asked. It'll mean a lot to him, to think others in the fight cared what happened afterwards."
"If you think it'll help. I can't help but think my presence is an irritant..." the Cheshire looks at Jimmy, "So, Jimmy.. were you born here? Or are you a transplant?"
Jimmy Olsen ponders. "Well, look at it like this. If people like Superman and Captain America thought you were an irritant, they'd find a way to remove you from the battlefield so you woulnd't get hurt and so you wouldn't increase the chances the bad guy would get away. So maybe think about that?" he says, then runs fingers through his shaggy red hair. "Technically, No; I was born in Yonkers, but that's really just up the street," he smiles. "So, yeah, all my life. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else."
"Bronx, myself," Keith says, "When did you decide to do what you do? Or does the journalistic bug run in the family?" The cat puts his feet up as well, starting to relax a little more. His couch wasn't exactly as nice as this one.
Jimmy Olsen's couch IS very nice since he spends so much time on it. The young man drinks most of the rest of his coffee, as he listens and thinks. "Always had it, I think. My Mom was a newsagent; before the internet they had these people that would scan and aggregate stories from all sorts of sources. She did that until she got a job doing fact-checking for the Bugle. That didn't last long, so now she's with an independent news service out of Boston."
"I can't imagine the Bugle has much appreciation for the facts. They insinuated I was in cahoots with the Joker and let him and Harley out at Arkham." He mutters. He hated to admit it, but he had a Joker-shaped boulder hanging around his neck, and he couldn't get the damned thing off. "Bloody rag. But at least she's getting good work with that service, I hope."
"She's happy," he says. "And I wouldn't worry. The Bugle has a long habit of doing stuff like that. I mean, look at poor Spider-Man!" He shakes his head again, and looks over at Vorpal. "Keith, you'll do fine, OK? You took down The Joker and there are not many people who can say that, really." He doesn't say 'Not many still alive', at least.
Vorpal sips his soda "I'm sorry... I haven't been able to let go of this stuff... I find myself talking about it over and over and over. It's hard to let go, you know." He leans back on the couch again, exhaling a medidative breath. "Getting called C-grade by one of those SHIELD agents isn't exactly healthy for the ego... and that reminds me, for some totally unrelated reason... I met Zatanna today!" It was probably because 'C' reminds him of 'Z', and Zatanna starts with it. Or maybe because he's just a random conversation hopper. 
Or then again, there's the sugar in the soda.
Jimmy Olsen quirks a smile and pushes gently at the side of Vorpal's head, avoiding the ear, a playful 'get ahold of yourself' gesture. "Hah. If I had a dollar for every time some SHIELD knuckledragger stuffed me in the back of a transport...? Um, well, I'd have like ten bucks. Don't pay much attention to them; they're just repeating the fed line on superheroes." He raises an eyebrow at Vorpal as he changes topics. "Lucky guy," he says. "I've never done an interview with her; Lois has, though. I think. She really doesn't talk to many people outside the entertainment press and even then not too much. She always struck me as just.. damn classy," he says.
Vorpal chuckles at what Jimmy says about SHIELD. Then when he talks about Zatanna, he nods. "Ooh yes, she's damned classy. I met her at this bar that the magic sort frequents..." he grins and repositions himself so that his head is on Jimmy's lap, looking up at him with a devilish look as he takes out two ticket stubs "AND GUESS WHAT?" he says, with barely contined excitement as he raises the tickets up to Jimmy's face. They're for Zatanna's next show.
Jimmy Olsen takes his guest's repositioning in stride and laughs quietly to himself. 'He.. really isn't all that unlike Aunt Minnie's cat... he thinks. He does ooooh at the tickets. "Wow, so there are perks to the whole superheroing thing after all! Good seats, too," he remarks. "I've seen her Vegas show. It's just astounding. Even more because she's not using any actual magic. You and boyfriend will have a great time, I'm telling you."
"I hope so, I need to make things up with him." He straightens up back on the couch and stretches, "I sort of was missing for three days."
Jimmy Olsen snorts as he gets up to go to the kitchenette again. "Chips?" he says, scoring a soda for himself this time. "And, yeah, no matter the sex, that never is good. 'Yes, hon, I /really was/ stuck in city in a bottle for a week' just never is something you can really explain." He looks back over at Vorpal. "Well, that depends, though. WHY were you missing for three days?"
"Sure! and... city in a bottle? Care to tell me about that one?" The cat chuckles "Well... I was attacked by an elf who was sent to kill Thor's son, got hit with the poison, nearelly died, spent a day unconscious in Asgard, was brought back down only to find out that Booster was gone... or dead... and then just as I was going to head home, Arkham alert."
Jimmy Olsen whistles. "Well, it can't really compare to that. Just got kidnapped by Brainiac and that.. just led to a lot of weirdness. I'm sure he'll understand, though," he says as hunts for chips, then for dip and some hummus, bringing the armload back to the coffee table. "Just explain. But.. well, maybe I'm not the one to be talking to. I've done a lot of crazy stuff but I'm not wearing a mask every night. Well, not now, at least, and I didn't have anyone in my life the times I did." He sits back down, getting a bowl of chips and dropping some dip on top of them. "Honestly, there are not a lot of hero/normal person relationships that seem to work out all that well."
The cat looks up at Jimmy, and ponders this. "I know you can keep a secret, you wouldn't be Superman's friend if you couldn't. My relationship isn't exactly... normal." Vorpal says, taking a chip and dipping it, then savoring it, purring appreciatively.
Jimmy Olsen nods about that, an appreciative nod for the trust implied, and pulls feet up to the couch, sitting crosslegged with the bowl on one knee. "Well, if you want to talk about it...?" he says.
"My boyfriend is the Iron Spider," Vorpal says. "A clone from another timeline. He was looking for me during those three days I was missing, because we always check in with each other. But I was in another dimension where they have no chargers, and my phone died while I was unconscious there. When I came back, I didn't have time to charge as I had to take care of Arkham. He found me after the report came out that I was sent to the hospital... " he munches on another chip. "He found me then. He said I know everything you have done in front of a camera, or that has been placed in a report for the last three days'... I know I'm lucky. But it also wrenched me. I'm the only thing he has in this world, you know... no family, no nothing. It's why I asked Booster to look out for him if anything happened to me... but now Booster's gone."
Jimmy Olsen whistles softly. "Yeah, that's.. gonna take more than a couple of tickets. You might be looking at an entire weekend resort package," he says, considering. "Man, poor guy.. " he breathes out. "I can tell one thing that might help, though?"
Vorpal looks at Jimmy "Please, do. I'm willing to hear just about anything."
Jimmy Olsen eats a chip slowly. "Well, one thing I'm hearing is that the poor guy is totally alone, except for you. So.. he needs friends. He needs connections. Um, maybe.. find him a job. Let him develop friends and stuff. The Planet has tons of contacts; I'm sure I could find a lead on something for him. And he'll need an identity in our world. I might could put you in contact with someone. Maybe. Favors, etc." He's thinking right now that Lois might be the one to go to with this. "Couldn't hurt to ask, could it?"
The cat smiles, and leans over to hug Jimmy. "Thank you, Jimmy... you're a gem. That would really mean a lot to m---"
And then there's the buzzing. He frowns and looks at the device wrapped around his wrist "Crap... I'm getting called... mind if I swing by later with a bad movie and we can hash this idea out?" The cat says, standing up and getting ready. "... thanks for being a friend. And it goes both ways, you know... if you need something, you'll call me, right?"
Category:Log