1963-12-08 - The Technical Term for This
Summary: Scott and Liv debrief about yesterday's incident. (Clusterfuck. The technical term for this is clusterfuck.) They do not make plans to go on a date.
Related: Out of Time: This Is My Hat
Theme Song: None
liv scott 


Before parting ways at Fisk Towers the day before, Liv had given Scott her number and a promise to compare notes when her brain felt a little less rattled. And although she agreed to meet him at the diner for lunch today, Liv had to admit… she is not feeling a whole hell of a lot less rattled.

She's claimed a booth tucked back in a corner where she can keep an eye on the diner as a whole, both hands wrapped around the largest mug of tea should could convince the waitress to bring her. She'd almost asked for a bowl but that would have been weird. She nurses her third refill instead and quietly waits, anxiously bouncing her knee beneath the table.

*

Scott is running late, which is rare, but students and their needs are unpredictable. Another reason he feels as though he's not suited to teach. The kids don't seem to feel that way, though, and maybe that's the real metric. It's icy and snowing, he's ruddy-cheeked with snow in his hair when he blows into the diner.

"Could I get a coffee?" he asks a waitress he passes, on his way to Liv's booth. She's impossible to miss with her height and that pale gold hair. "Hey." He gives her a smile as he shakes off the snow before hanging up his coat. "Sorry I'm late. Kids."

Then, he can collapse opposite her and gratefully accept the tall white mug of coffee set in front of him. He waves off the offer of the cream and sugar. "Black's fine. Saves time."

"Well…" He doesn't ask Liv how she is. She looks strung tight as a violin. "Good to see you again."

*

The way Liv sits up a bit straighter as soon as she seems him coming doesn't do much to counter that impression. She does offer him a smile, though, waving off the apology with one hand. "It's alright. You work with kids, I'm guessing?" He looks far too young to actually have any.

Then again. She makes a face and has another sip of her tea. Drinking to forget works a lot better when it's alcohol.

"Hopefully the circumstances will be a little kinder today," Liv says, taking in a deep breath. Right. Steady on. "I'm sorry you got caught up in… whatever that was. Thank you for the help."

*

"Teacher, kind of," Scott explains. He shrugs off the the thanks when she offers it. "That's okay. Just glad I could be of some assistance. Whatever that was, it wasn't your first time." He worked that out pretty quickly. "You mind telling me what you know?" He's certain she's going to ask where he's from, who he works for, and he's not sure how to answer that.

*

"Not as much as you're probably hoping I know," Liv admits with an apologetic smile, rolling her eyes towards the ceiling. "My friend, Fitz, he's the scientist. I'm just trying to make sure he doesn't get himself hurt." She leans back in her seat and looks across at Scott, pursing her lips. How much, exactly, should she be discussing..?

Well. Considering how much he saw and guessed already… there actually isn't much to leave out, is there? She actually looks a little relieved by this realization.

"To keep a long story short, though? We are pretty sure that when you ask those two if they're from the future, you're not far off," Liv says with a grimace, rocking a hand back and forth. "Fitz is still trying to figure out whether it's the future, or a multiverse thing, or… what. That was the first time I'd seen those swarms, though."

*

"The blue…portal? The light on the roof. The people "a future" — whoever's future it is — from were there before the light as far as I could tell." Scott is nothing if not observant — when he wants to be. If he seems to be oblivious sometimes, it's probably deliberate. He ticks off what he knows on his fingers, eyes on Liv's face.

"Your friend had a machine, they had a machine. Robot things. Both headed for the roof when that light appeared. You and your friend and that woman and her friend all tracking that light? Do you have any idea if it's dangerous or what it does?"

*

"Fitz's robot. Sleepy. He's been able to find these… anomalies," Liv says with a wave of one hand. Tech isn't her forte — she can understand it, she just hasn't asked Fitz to lay it out for her yet. "I assume that's basically how those two found their way there, too. Following Ringo." What kind of name is Ringo, anyway? Whatever.

Liv gestures with both hands as she speaks, her brow pinching together. "The first time we tracked that blue light down, it was on the roof of the Bugle, and it was pulsing. And those pulses were… pretty solid. Knocked us off our feet." She's pretty sure that's how Fitz hurt his ribs. "But that time, there were no swarms. But that may be because those two had beaten us there and sealed it already, I don't know."

*

"So this is round two." Scott looks pensive, putting together what she's said. "The blue lights, are they related to the time travel or time distortion? We saw the two other people leave, do you know how they arrived? And the swarms, did they come through the lights?"

Scott should be taking notes. He pulls a battered little field notebook out of his back pocket, a pen out of his shirt pocket, and begins to write. Fisk building and Bugle. Height. Until something shows up at a lower level, he's putting height down as a factor.

"Did you say something about a ship? Or was I imagining that?"

*

"Round two that I know of. I… assume the blue lights are related somehow, that's what Sleepy's been honing in on," Liv says with a helpless shrug. "And right now, I'm afraid you know as much about the swarms as I do."

She eyes the notebook for a moment, absently wondering whether or not she's going to be chewed out later, before deciding she's not sure she cares. She drops her chin into a hand and closes her eyes for a moment — she doesn't really want to see the look on his face for this part.

"The hat that girl was wearing looked very much like one I lost aboard a… well, initially, we thought it was a spaceship, parked on top of the Bugle." She pauses. "It was invisible, but it was there."

*

"The hat, right." Scott's tone is nearly indifferent. It's just information. "So there was a thing on top of the Bugle…that means they might have had it somewhere near the Fisk building?" He makes a dissatisfied noise about the theory. "If they're coming from the future, or a parallel, there's no telling how much time is passing. They could be taking information back and leaping ahead years in their technology before trying again. Still, some kind of projection into our space-time makes sense. The girl with the hat — your hat, her mother's hat — did you recognize her?"

Sorry, Liv. Scott looks up from his notes, a little frown on his face.

*

Liv just gives him a bit of a look. "No."

Honestly, if being asked all these questions wasn't helping Liv sort through the information herself, she might decide to be done. Instead, she works her jaw a little bit.

"I didn't see anyone on the ship, just heard voices. Might've been them," she says with a shrug, frowning down at her tea.

*

"Well, I think the technical term for this is 'clusterfuck'," Scott says mildly. He closes the notebook, tucks it and his pen away in his shirt pocket, then takes a drink of his coffee. "And I'm guessing we're at detente, you and I — neither of us really at liberty to disclose anything. I have to say something about this, I'm just trying to work out what I'm going to say. The minimum, I think."

*

Liv can't help but laugh. "That does sound about right. I do wish I had more for you," she says with a sigh, offering him a small smile across the booth. "But until I can actually get one of those people to stick around long enough for a conversation… which I doubt I'm going to be able to do, honestly. I read science fiction."

*

"And no way to foresee when those things are going to appear again?" Scott runs a hand through his hair, leaving it in disarray. He doesn't seem to notice. "If your people need help with the tech, maybe we can work something out. Mine…sometimes manage to pull something out of their asses, so to speak. But I'm basically nobody and can't speak for any of it, or I'd offer more. More anything. You have my number, though. You can always call if you want some backup for your sleuthing."

*

"And you've got mine." Liv's home number, but still. "I don't know if Fitz is going to be able to figure out how that thing works, but if he does, I'll talk to him about sharing notes. I don't see the harm in it." Fitz might. SHIELD might. But she doesn't, and so she's going to ask.

*

"If this occurs again, if the problem spreads, I'm going to have to be more explicit about it all," Scott warns. "There's going to be pressure on me and, also, I don't want this to get out of hand just because the people we work for — either side — are putting secrets over safety for millions."

*

Liv holds up her hands, her smile going lopsided. "Do what you need to in order to keep people safe, Scott. I don't want anybody to panic, but I can't control what you see or who you speak to, and I wouldn't to."

*

"We'll see how it all plays out. If you thought you might let me take you out to dinner some time, we could catch up again." It's as good an excuse as any to cross paths again, compare notes.

Scott has a pretty good idea of who she works for, now that he's turning it over in his mind. How many organizations would have a young black man as a technical expert and an attractive woman as a field agent? Vanishingly few and there's only one that stands out as promoting that kind of diversity. All the more reason to make the contact social, nothing more.

*

"Dinner." Liv is not squinting suspiciously at Scott at all, no sir. It's a trick of the light. She is virtually certain that he is not actually asking her out for anything other than what he's suggesting — sharing notes again, so that they're both kept up to date.

So what can it hurt.

"…sure, why not. Next week?" Liv suggests, tilting her head slightly to one side. "If something happens in the meantime, we can reschedule, bump it up."

*

Scott may actually be incapable of asking anyone out for romantic reasons. If he tried, there might be a disaster involved, like him levelling a city block with his eye beams when he knocks his glasses off in the attempt. Everything is standing so it's reasonably certain that this can be taken at face value.

"Next week, I'll call you in the meantime but should we say Friday night?" This is definitely not a date, Scott is checking his notebook and drinking his coffee like a competent human being instead exhibiting the grace of a monkey being tasered by bees.

*

Definitely not a date, because Liv is saying "Sure, that sounds good." Just a couple of people meeting for dinner on a Friday night. In what world is that a date?

*

Certainly not this world. In this world, Scott says something like 'I hear the pie here is really good' and Liv admits that she could stand to try some of it before she slogs through the snow to work across town. In this world, they hang around like normal people and critique the baking and share ridiculous work stories until people stare at them for laughing too much. For at least one shining moment, this world is the one where nothing untoward is happening. Nothing at all.

*

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License