2012-11-03 Designated Driver

4:36am, Saturday. Sue, as she promised, has spent the evening being the designated 'driver' for Ben and Hellboy. But she's just dropped Ben off at the Baxter to sleep (and thanked Reed for being understanding), and is now conveying Hellboy home as well. "Where do you live again?" she asks the red-skinned demon.
Hellboy stumbles around a bit, pointing up. "There." he tries to jump a couple of times. "Damn.." he mutters, "can't fly. Not that cool, Suziepants." he reaches for his flask, hits it again and puts it away. "Where's Benny again? We drop him off already?"
Sue Storm looks up, not entirely catching what he means. Don't blame her, the Helicarrier isn't what comes to mind first when people point up. "That's okay, Red, I can. Remember?" She creates a flat force field more than big enough to support Hellboy and not let him stumble off the side. "And yes, Ben's probably already sleeping in his own bed. Now come on, I promised you a lift home."
The Helicarrier is, as usual, stealthed up and over Central Park. The only hint that it's there at all comes from the slender gossamer fibers that run skywards, fading from view past about ten feet overhead, each composed of some exotic buckminsterfullerene that has a strength like diamond. In thirty or forty years we'll have a space elevator made of this stuff, but for now it's in the purely experimental, early stages of deployment -- and instead of being used as a space elevator, it gets used to haul cargo up and down from the Helicarrier.
This, at least, is the science. The reality is that there's now a figure descending Christlike from the clouds, as if it were Jesus returning for the Second Coming, his arms stretched wide to welcome all the little children to him. Just ignore the fact that he's dropping at terminal velocity and somehow managing to keep perfectly upright...
Thirty feet above the ground the decelerator on the Helicarrier kicks in, and the harness that Nick Fury is wearing -- tied to the Helicarrier by a nanocable -- runs taut. Seven gees of deceleration later and the Christ figure with an eyepatch is standing there in Central Park.
Nick Fury is God.
Now y'all have seen /everything/.
Hellboy looks up, and blinks. "Oh my god are you kidding me?" he speaks with a bit of a slur, and a squint in his eye. "Really, Boss? Where's Spinal Tap when you need 'em?" he says incredulously. He looks to Sue, "Are you seeing this? Tell me you're seeing this!"
Sue Storm blinks at Nick Fury's rather ... ostentatious arrival. "Uh, yeah. I'm seeing this too." She steps toward Nick though admittedly a bit warily. "Director Fury, um, hi." She starts looking guilty now, especially considering Hellboy's positively pickled status currently.
Nick Fury unhooks his drop harness, freeing him from the nanocable that runs up a few kilometers to the Helicarrier above. He doesn't seem to be putting on an act: he's as matter-of-fact as if this was the usual way he rolls. (Which it isn't: he prefers to parachute into Central Park. This is, by his standards, subdued.) "Sue." He looks over towards Hellboy, one old soldier immediately sizing up the state of his troop. "Do I need to talk to anyone about property damage, public intoxication, or paparazzi?"
Hellboy holds his hands up, "Nope. Not me. Wasn't my fault! Blame it on that Blue Eyed Walkin' Planetoid I as dirnkin' with!" he says resolutely, "I haff a witness!"
Sue Storm laughs softly at that and shakes her head. "None of the above, Director. I'm a very conscientious designated driver. In fact, I was just about to give Hellboy here a lift home, but his directions were a bit... vague."
Nick Fury gives Sue a nod of acknowledgment -- something that comes with a bit of a grunt attached to it -- and offers the harness to Hellboy. "Rapid ascent, big guy." Then, towards Sue: "Given how plowed he is we might want to take shelter beneath a tree. If he pukes passing through 5,000 feet, you don't want to be under it when it lands."
Hellboy shrugs, "Go to Central Park, look for the big floaty thing that isn't there. Wasso hard about that?!" he blinks at Nick, "Aw c'mon..I'm not THAT hammered. I'm not gonna make it rain." he takes the harness though, and hooks himself up. He looks up, and then tugs on the line twice.
Sue Storm hastily reaches a hand toward the harness. "Wouldn't it be a bit gentler, then, if I gave him that lift I promised? It'll definitely be slower, but then maybe the morning joggers won't have anything to be grossed out about." She looks at Hellboy. "You sure about that, big guy?"
Hellboy shifts his eyes from side to side. "Well, to be honest, no. But I don't /feel/ that bad. That's gotta count for somethin'."
Nick Fury says, "Mox nix." It's an old phrase, not used very much any more in the modern era. Of course, back in WW2 it was about as common as "Kilroy Was Here." You have to cut the old warhorses a little linguistic slack, even if what they mean isn't exactly clear. "You want to give him a lift, feel free. Might be a little hard to find the Helicarrier, though, given that the only clue to where it is you'll have is following a fiber the same diameter as a piece of spiderweb. Easy to get lost against the big blue sky. Probably safer this way."
Hellboy is standing there, unsure if he's going up by the cable or by Sue. In either case, he takes a deep breath and looks up at the sky, and at Nick's use of some of the old argot, he begins to softly sing a song from back in those days. Who knew Big Red was a crooner, and not entirely a bad one?
Sue Storm just smiles at Nick perhaps a bit smugly. "That's already solved. You've already given him a guideline that I can follow." And as if to prove that, the force field she'd made before Fury's showy arrival disappears and another appears just below their feet and starts lifting all three of them like an open-air elevator. It starts slowly and smoothly picks up speed to about twenty miles per hour. She doesn't know how far up their destination is, and would really rather not bash them up against the underside of the thing.
Nick Fury waits for the better part of about three minutes before saying anything. "Yep, there's a guideline." There's a pause, a long one, and he checks his watch for a moment. "O'course, that just means we're going to slam into it at good speed, and inertia will launch us into the inside of your force-bubble at about twenty-five miles an hour, and none of us are wearing seat belts." Pause, beat beat. "Unless, of course, y'all have some kind of weird fancy inertial inhibitors you haven't yet shared with us."
Hellboy falls quiet as he goes up. He was right, though. He's got a cast iron stomach, and doesn't through up. If anything he looks like he's enjoying the brisk wind of the ascent.
Sue Storm blinks at Nick, and their 'lift' slows to a stop. "How much farther do we have to go?" she asks as her eyes almost involuntarily turn upwards.
Nick Fury answers with a hint of the droll, "Well, I don't exactly know our exact altitude, so I don't exactly know how much further we have to go. Kinda problematic. So maybe, it'd be a good idea to project another one of these things ahead of us a hundred feet or so. Once it hits, you'll feel it and you'll know we need to slow down. That's just what comes to mind. You have another way of doing it, feel free. You know this schtick better'n I do, probably."
Hellboy speaks up, "Uhhh yeahhh...you might wanna speed it up, because I gotta break the seal and Boss here might get on a ladder and look down on me if I make it rain from up here."
Sue Storm ohs at Nick. That makes sense. And then Hellboy tosses out his ... wonderful little quip and her eyes go kind of wide. A second, more opaque force field appears well above them and the 'lift' resumes, accelerating more quickly this time and continuing to accelerate to nearly fifty miles per hour. A third field appears to reduce the worst of the wind hitting them.
In about another minute, the outermost force field comes to an abrupt, colliding halt with something else. The advance bubble then crashes against the inside wall of the outermost force field, and Sue's able to bring the passenger-field to a halt that's a bit abrupt but not bone-jarring. "Go on around the edge, up to the flight deck," Fury quips matter-of-factly as he lights up a cigar (yes, inside a small, enclosed force field). "It's only stealthed from the ground. It has to be visible from above for flight operations and plane landings."
Speaking of plane landings, sure... Carol can fly under her own power, but she maintains her pilot's license and signed a jet out to do some training and keep her skills up to date. It was a dogfight training run with three other pilots. One wingman and two opponents. Her unique physiology allows her to pull more G's than most pilots can endure and so she had a fairly good showing out there. The four jets just landed however, and she's in her flight suit as she walks away from the planes, helmet in hand and calling over her shoulder, "Don't worry boys! Your beer is on me tonight as I promised!"
The microfillament cables that allow cargo and people to move up and down from the Hellicarrier comes whining to a halt and in a moment, Hellboy, Director Nick Fury and Sue Storm rise up to the flight deck. However, only Red is the one unhooking the harness. Free to move about the Hellicarrier, he makes his way for the nearest head. Not running or freaking outbut definitely has a purpose. If one gets near him, he absolutely reeks of hard liquor, and his demeanor gives no illusion to his state. Hellboy is /sauced/ man. "Coming through! Gotta find the head!" he calls out as he makes his way across the deck.
Sue Storm steps lightly onto the deck of the Helicarrier (Well, about three inches above the deck), amused by Hellboy's very abrupt departure. She turns to Fury and is about to say something but Carol's voice calling out nearby distracts her.
Nick Fury looks down at his cigar for a moment, then off at the flight deck, and the signs that loudly announce NO SMOKING, VIOLATION OF U.N. WORKPLACE RULES and hand-written signs beneath that read, BESIDES, THERE'S JET FUEL!. "Ah, hell. I always forget," he mumbles before throwing his just-lit cigar off over the edge of the flight deck. "Danvers. We're just bringing Hellboy back after a nearly-fatal night on the town. You have any idea how much liquor he has to imbibe to get like that? It's legendary."
Chuckling, Carol shakes her head and hands her flight helmet off to one of the flight officers nearby. "Likely just a touch more than me. What with my whole revamped physiology and all. At least being an alien-human hybrid gives me one or two advantages these days." That said, she walks over and slowly sweeps her eyes about the deck for a few moments, before realizing that Hellboy's not in sight. "Oh Hell, Big Red's in the head again, eh?" she asks.
Hellboy steps out a few minutes later, large satisfied grin on his face. He steps a little loose as he makes his way back to the deck. Now that he doesn't have to worry about embarassing himself he can resume his drunken state. "Carol!" he calls out, "How's my favorite blonde on the whole Carrier, eh?"
Sue Storm chooses to not be offended by Hellboy's greeting to Carol, considering she's just a visitor here and isn't even going to stay much longer. "Well, looks like my designated driver duties are now complete. I'd best be going now." She waves at Hellboy and Carol as she takes a step back toward the edge of the carrier, and looks at Nick as she steps completely off of the edge without falling. "It was good to see you again, Director. Have a good, um, rest of the night."
Nick Fury gives Sue a polite, all-business, nothing-but-the-facts-ma'am nod. "Ms. Storm." Yes, he's a man of his era, and nothing will ever change that. He then looks over towards Carol, gesturing for her to follow after Hellboy. "Go and make sure he doesn't fall into the john and drown himself. The way my day is going, that'd be about what I'd expect."
Eyeing Hellboy, Carol snorts and shakes her head, "Tell me you didn't shanghai Ms. Storm here as a taxicab driver you Pickled Red Pepper you..." She shakes her head once more and looks to Sue before smiling gently, "Well, thank you at least for bringing him up here where we have good plumbing to handle the aftereffects of his drinking binges." That said, she looks towards Nick as she moves closer to Hellboy, "No, your luck would be that he'd fall off the carrier and smash some old biddy's house who just happened to be the loved one of some anger filled metahuman."
Hellboy stands up at his full height and width and tugs on the lapels of his trenchcoat. "And you know what, Blondie? I'd wreck whoever it was, then I'd spend the rest of the day fixin' the damage I did to granny's house! After I made sure her sister and her Nikes weren't undernearth!! HA!" he laughs raucously. He made a funny. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a horseshoe and shakes his head, puts it in the other pocket. Pulls out a beer. "Beer for the Blondie! There ya go!" he says, beering Carol dutifully.
Sue Storm just shakes her head amusedly. Her duty done, she sinks out of sight of the pair on the Helicarrier's deck, after a moment turning and returning to the Baxter Building much, much more quickly than travelling up from Central Park. She might even get home in time to shower and hopefully fall asleep before sunrise. What a concept.
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