It's late, though not so late that people aren't out and about, and along walks a Billy and a Keith. Billy's dressed in his 'out to work' outfit, which is a green jumpsuit with a slit up the sides of the legs, chest and then covering his arms, and on that slit there are pictures of galaxies. But then, up ahead, is a store, and a gunshot rings out as someone attempts to rob it —
Victor was always out late for some particular reason. Perhaps it was to help clear his head, since he is now trapped in the distant past. With that said, he's just wearing a brown bomber jacket with blue jeans and a white T-shirt, apparently not minding the silence of it all…until he hears a gunshot.
Calculating the location of the apparent assault of some kind by triangulating the sound and type of the gun, followed by the distance and travel of the sound itself, In an instant, the nanites which make up Victor seem to reform his clothes and body into a kind of high-tech armor. Well, kind of high-tech. it just looks like an armor made of sleek silver as he propels himself through the sky, until he suddenly lands near the crime scene. His eyes glow blue as he scans the building, as if seeing how many men there are, what weapons they have, and if they have any hostages.
Frankly speaking, Keith doesn't quite have the outfit thing together yet. For now, it is whatever he can conjure up in his mind, until he gets the chance to actually sit down and design something.
Until the shot rang, Keith looked like your average redhead walking about in greaser garb, but when the call to action comes, the human begins to look blurry, and the illusion vanishes to leave a Cheshire cat…
In shorts. Because it is summer, it is hot, and he wears a fur coat 24/7. It is also not the most heroic or awe-inspiring garb, which is why the illusion spell kicks in a half second later and covers his body, creating the appearance of a bodysuit of a black so intense, it gives the impression of staring into an abyss. His head and hands are the only things not covered by the darkness.
"Sounds like they're playing our song," he says to the young sorcerer. "I'll go the sneaky way and you can draw attention so I can pounce from behind, yes?"
And he vanishes. Gunshots are a serious thing so he doesn't do the slow vanishing and leaving his grin behind because that takes time. But, following the direction of the sound, he runs as fast as he can, invisible and silent.
"Agreed, Vorpal." He lifts the red hood he wears up and pulls it over his head then, rolls his shoulders, and stalks forward. Lifting his hands, his left one holds out before him— though one can not see the shield of telekinetic force he puts out— and the other has electricity (or something very like it) crackling between his fingers. Billy jogs to the store, and then blinks as he sees Victor. He pauses, "Umm." He's good at this leading business, "Friend or foe?" he asks the silver-armored fellow. You never can tell, especially lately. "Had some odd experiences of late, so, who you gonna punch?"
Victor watches the store still even now before those glowing, cyan-colored irises find Billy as he approaches. "At the moment, so long as our goals align of stopping this bank robbery, I would answer 'friend'. Though I would ask the same of you." He hasn't quite noticed Keith yet, thanks to his epic display of being invisible and silent!
"I will take care of the guns. My only concern is if there are any hostages or wounded."
"Sounds like *my* type of choreography," a voice comes from Victor's right shoulder. It is, of course, Keith, becoming momentarily visible. "I shall take the element of surprise!"
Of course, Keith is new at teamwork. He hasn't quite realized that pulling that kind of an appearance on someone who may be a proxy ally, but who doesn't know your powerset, is great way of getting reflex-punched in the face.
Experience is a tough teacher, though.
"Friend." Billy asserts quickly, "Hero type, Mark 2.5, that's me. New model, recently vinted." Pause, "But yeah handling guns would be totally appreciated as my shield doesn't really get that strong. I'll take care of protecting anyone that needs protecting, maybe some minor healing, while K— Vorpal— will pounce." With that, Billy just…vanishes. Only he doesn't vanish like Keith does, because he appears in the bank at the far side a moment later, both hands lifting up. Its chaos in there. There's five bank robbers, one pistol whipped employee, one shot guard. Immediately he puts a shield up over the guard, and moves over that way.
Yeah…it's a really bad idea to sneak up on a intended-murderbot. As soon as Keith just -appears- and in his blindside no less, Victor reflexively whips his silver-armored elbow aimed directly for Keith's face! Seems he really…surprised Victor. Though Kid Ultron quickly looks to be guilty about even throwing the attack at all. "Goodness, I'm sorry. You should not sneak up on me in such a tense situation. Are you alright?" he asks, before Billy states his intentions and leaves!
Victor watches as Billy appears in the bank, and so it's time to move! Victor will help Vorpal recover if he can, then he's gone as well! except he just flies. But alas, the gunmen inside the bank will soon find their guns magnetically stuck to the ceiling! flying out of their hands to leave them defenseless in terms of ranged weaponry. Gotta resort to the fisticuffs!
"… you pack one hell of a punch," Keith mutters as he is helped up. He briefly touches his nose- it stings, but it's a miracle it didn't break. "I'm alright, it's good-" he takes a moment to get a good look of Victor. Between the guy's build and the silver armor, startling him was obviously -not- a good idea. Rookie mistake. You live and you learn.
Before he has a chance to say anything else, two of his Three Caballeros are off galloping to save the day, leaving him behind to recover from being dazed.
Once all the little birdies have flown away, the Cat returns to his invisibility and jumps into the fray.
Fisticuffs is just what's in the cards. The Cheshire Cat won't engage directly just yet, because Silver Boy (he forgot to ask for his codename!) is clearly taking that lead, and Billy is running protection. It falls to him to complement and add confusion to the mix.
Once he is in position, he focuses and begins to create Rabbit Holes to anticipate the attacks from the robbers that try to flank his ally. Those Rabbit Holes open to let punches and kicks pass and… attack their allies. And, in the more entertaining instances, themselves. It is all he can do to not show 'Stop hitting yourself!' and reveal his position in the corner.
One hand up to hold a shield, the other reaches over the guard's wound and a bullet slowly pulls out of it, carefully. Billy then lays a hand over the wound, warm blood on skin, and he murmurs, "Heal, heal, healhealhealHEAL." Its not perfect. He's far from the best healer out there. But the man isn't likely to die as a good chunk of the wound seals itself up. He looks up to take stock of the the environment, but with Victor leaving their hands weaponless, two go for him, and two more try to work through Keith's confusion and figure out how the hell they're somehow attacking eachother.
Victor seems to be quite relieved that Keith is well and alright. Back to the task at hand. As men apparently seem to be coming for him, Victor simply blasts bolts of electricity into one of them, effectively shocking him into unconsciousness, while the other seems to get absolutely knocked out via getting punched. In the face.
Across the room. and smashing into a desk.
With that done, Victor checks to see if Vorpal needs a hand!
By this point, Vorpal is playing fast and loose with illusions. What few remaining robbers there are are tricked into attacking each other, as each adopts the perfect appearance of either Victor or Billy. It's not tht he can't throw a punch, but he is a firm believer in the Feline Law of conservation of energy, which states: Why do it, when you can get someone else to do it for you?
But all good things must end, and eventually the trick is not as effective as the robbers catch on.
Which is when there is suddenly a Cheshire Cat that springs out of thin air and begins to wail on them with punches, kicks, and claws. It is a little like being attacked like a rogue food processor. As far as as fighting technique, he is a little rough, but he makes up for it in ehthusiasm.
And dirty fighting. His blows are aimed to neutralize and take someone out of commbat as soon as possible. As his knee connects over and over with one of the thugs, some of the nearby observers might find themselves fighting the urge of curling up into a ball…
Between Victor and Keith, the bank robbers are taken care of. Billy makes sure no wounds are fatal, no one's dying, but then he's reaching over to try to snag a …well, does Victor have a shirt? A clink of armor to Keith's shirt to tug them away, "Away, away, my heros, for while we fight for the good of the people in the light, too much light and questions will be hard to answer." At that he pauses, concentrates a moment, "Beam me up scotty, beammeupscottybeammeupscotty." The light of color around them becomes a little indistinct at that point, and then… *swirls*, all sense of place vanishing in the spinning colors that have no form or shape. The spinning slows, other colors are added in, and they find themselves on a roof several miles away of a nondescript building.
As the fight draws to a swift close, Victor finds himself teleported away via Billy's….magic? Mutant ability? Metahuman ability? It's confusing, but that's okay! Regardless, he also knew the reference. Well, he's now on a roof! and eventually, his armor simply dissipates into flowing nanites which seem to replace his more casual clothing of the bomber jacket with blue jeans and a white shirt.
"I thank you for the help." He swiftly deduces Billy -hopefully- took them all to a safe place. "My name is Victor. Victor Mancha. Though a 'codename' of mine would be Kid Ultron. Who are you?" he asks of Keith and Billy.
"Like Don Quijote of?" Vorpal says with a grin. He is familiar, by now, with Billy's teleportation, and to him it is but a walk in the parkk. The illusion that was holding his costume together vnishes, and he is no longer clad in midnight but in the black tank-top and the boxer shorts.
As in, actual boxing shorts, nnot his underwear. He may aim for comfort in the heatwave of the summer, he stops short of actual indecency, because this is just a regular heatwave and not the kind that Martha and the Vandellas so aptly described last summer.
Good record, that one.
Victor is forthcoming with his identity, so Vorpal feels obligated to reciprocate. "I'm Keith, though my 'codename' is Vorpal. Because I am -the- Cheshire cat." He crosses his arms and raises his chin just a little. Mybe this guy has actually read the book and knows who that is…
Quick side-glance at Billy as if asking him 'Have you red it yet?'
Billy looks visibly pained, pinching the bridge of his nose a moment, "Guys? When you have a codename, you lead with that. You don't lead with your name." Pause, "Especially not your fullname." He gives Victor a look, "The whole point of having a codename is you are creating a separation between your life and your possibly illegal yet heroic but also blackmailable activities. Let me demonstrate." He looks between the two of them, "I am Wiccan." He lets that sink in, "Notice I didn't tell you myname yet. We do that at a later point. This is how codenames work." He eyes Keith a moment, "Man I have a full time job, full time college schedule, _and_ nighttime activities. I haven't yet!"
Victor glances to Vorpal. "Nice to meet you Keith." though as the Chesire Cat is mentioned, a tilt of his head follows. "As in Alice in Wonderland?" he asks curiously. He's read every story. With that in mind, he then looks to Billy, though he looks confused, tilting his head once more at the young man. "Why? Are we not allies?" Kid Ultron asks Wiccan before he simply shrugs. "I must have made an error in miscalculation. Forgive me." He states simply, before he tilts his head at Billy. Clues to an identity. Will formulate hypothesis later. Regardless…
"I assume you two already have established a friendship?" he asks curiously.
"THANK YOU!" Keith enthusiastically puts an arm around Kid Ultron's shoulder and points to himm, looking at BIlly, "HE gets it!" If he registered the chastisement from Billy, he desn't show it, as he remains overly friendly to their new ally. He then switches his attention to Billy as he excuses himself, and crosses hiis arms with a smirk, one eyebrow raised.
"Fine. Then perhps I shall have to ask your significant other if I could read to you as a bedtime story before the two of you get on with your 'nocturnal activities', so you can get caught up." so maybe he did register the chastisement, and he's getting back at Billy by trying to get him to turn tomato-red. Who knows?
"You could say that," he answers to Vic, "Though in this case it is more of a test to see how long Wiccan's good nature will last before he decides to throw me overboard into a different plane of existence." Grin.
"We're guys and a guy who don't know anything about eachother and before revealing our _names_, we should, figure out if I don't know, you're against bank robberies but for the mass slaughter of cats. I don't know you're pro-cat-holocaust, but we're strangers." Billy snorts and shrugs, "When on the job you figure out who your long-term allies are with at least two or three meetings. You don't just trust a momentary alignment. I'm not saying we're not allies. I'm saying we're smarter then blurting out our names after a moment that suggests alliance." Nocturnal activities? It does have Billy blushing, though his hood shadows that more or less. "Look you guys maybe have no one who is a vector to attack you but *I* do. There's a reason for a little caution." He eyes Keith for a long moment, "I wouldn't qualify being jailed in the Mirror Dimension as being 'thrown overboard'." primly.
Victor seems to smile, albeit confusedly as to why Keith seems to abundantly happy at Victor's proper identification of the history of Keith's codename. Regardless, as Vic seems to describe different planes of existence, Victor knows a few, but not NEARLY as well as Wiccan. Though speaking of Wiccan, as Billy seems to go on a small rant about trust and friends, Victor looks just as curious as he is intrigued.
"Those are very strange, unlikely, and specific scenarios." he partly wonders if Billy had some kind of cat-related PTSD. Regardless, as Victor starts to think back and examine information already displayed, such s the words 'beam me up scotty'. Well, for one thing, the first ever Star Trek doesn't even release until late 1966. Not for another year from now. So unless Billy has the ability to deduce certain adaptations or used a phrase to be a sort of luck, Victor deduces at least an 86 percent chance that Billy is not from this timeline, since it happens to be 1965. Victor seems to look at Billy curiously because of this, but says nothing for now.
"Mirror Dimension?" he asks instead.
"Oh, Wiccan, if it's the same dimension as Looking-Glass Land, believe me you will WANAT to throw yourself overboard. One evening at tea ith the Red Queen and all sanity is scarce and boredom is… everywhere." Keith shrugs. "Attack vectors… I hate it when you get all… Trigonometronomicon."
He doesn't question that thing about Scotty. Billy is a Wizard, and part of being a wizard is saying weird things which then proceed to explode, or similar but equally entertaining effects. Perhaps Scotty is some sort of Master Of The Doorways, like the one that guards the Linear Maze that connects Wonderland to Looking-Glass Land. In cases such as these, it is best not to know.
He sits down on the ground, legs crossed under him, and looks up at Victor and Billy.
Billy is so totally form the future; Victor picks it out but he doesn't even notice. "The scenarios are only an example… Kid Ultron. There's lots of other scenarios. Like, someone knows my name, finds my little brother, says, hey Wiccan? Change reality or I kill the kid? _That's_ why we don't just broadcast who we are. My kid brother can't defend himself out of anything." He glances over to Keith, and snorts, "No, the Mirror Dimension…" he looks between the pair of them, since they both asked, really, "Is a largely empty reflection of this world, used by wizards to practice our arts. The realm reflects this one but the reflection is one-way. Its also sometimes used by wizards as a prison. Every so often 'practice safe space' and 'prison' overlap into let us call it Creative Situations." I am practicing spells + OH GOD COSMIC MONSTER = funpracticday. He glances back to Keith, "An attack vector is a vulnerability, a weakness, something someone else can get to you as. Do you love someone? They are an attack vector. It doesn't mean you don't love, but you plan for and prepare, that, hey,… If someone has a knife to their throat, what _wont_ you do? I'll tell you what I've thought of that scenario…"
Victor tilts his head lightly at Billy. "Curious. I don't know what love is." He stares blankly at Billy before he seems to notice that the young mage might be a little paranoid. Though hey, at least now he knows how to make Billy's life a literal hell if Billy falls off the deep end. WHich is unlikely, given Victor and Billy's character and personality. Anyway..
His eyes shift to Keith at his…interesting word.
"I believe the word you are looking for is 'trigonometric'." Or at least that's what his database says. regardless, his eyes fall upon Billy. "Strange." is all Victor says. Of course he doesn't mean the person, more like he finds the aspect of magecraft incredibly illogical and complex. Well of course he does! he's all technology!
"Love is something they sell ya in the movies and on Valentine's day," the Cheshire smirks, his expression taking a turn for the sardonic, "Not sure what's supposed to be so great about it, to be fair, but Wiccan here is the expert on that, what with his nighttime activities and all."
He stands up and stretches, and stifles a yawn. "I am being unfair to Wiccan, though. He does have a family who cares. My mother died, and my old man kicked me to the street when he found out I liked men without a penny to my name." He stifles a yawn, "So if someone comes for him, I won't exactly be running over broken glass to come untie him from the railroad tracks." There is an edge of bitterness in his voice, which he quickly softens. "I'm fine the way I am. Getting too close to people weighs you down." He pauses and glances at Billy out of the corner of his eye, "Notable exceptions… well, exempted."
Victor, minus 5 points. Billy stares at him hard. "Love is when the life— safety— happiness of another means more to you then anything. Touch someones love and you can ctry to control them. Unfortunately, you're an idiot if you do: touch someones love and you will drive anyone worth controlling beyond rationality. My dad said I should never Unmake anything, but…" He leaves that hanging. Then shrugs, "Of course, I'm in a special position. Someone tried to use this against me, their world would _end_." He looks to Keith, tilting his head, "You don't know what's so great about it? Tell me, … Vorpal … is there anything at all you'd— as a theoretical bad guy— do against me knowing you'd risk my father's ire? Isn't there an expression about buying trouble? That's not even remembering who Mom is. After he's done, she'll just make everyone _remember_ why they should never so much as think of such a thing again. In quiet whimpers. Anyone who does not fear the Scarlet Witch is ignorant." He looks then back to Victor, squinting, "What about Strange? Yes, I'm talking about family bonds. But about how *unwise* it is to use them, even if we recognize them."
Victor's eyes shift to Keith for a moment then. Tilting his head. "My father is a megalomaniacal artificial intelligence. I am uncertain if my situation is comparable, but I believe I can sympathize. My mother is also deceased, unfortunately." strangely enough, that last sentence is only the second display of human-like emotion that Victor has displayed. Clearly it's a painful memory. If only that he wanted to know more about her so he could learn what love was.
Nevertheless, he doesn't comment onthis nighttime activities thing, but he does look at Billy. Since it was Billy who speaks of this 'Strange' as a person, he can only assume on a 99 percent accuracy that he speaks of Doctor Stephen Strange, renowned neurosurgeon and a master of the mystic arts, as programmed into him by Ultron himself. He assumes the Scarlet Witch is the same Scarlet Witch that is the moniker of Wanda Maximoff. Who he knows very little about except badthings happen around her periodically. Hey, don't blame the kid! blame the information he was force-fed.
"I do not know. Who is Strange?" he asks, simply to passively test the accuracy of his information. "I mean strange as in the sense that it is unusual or surprising in a way that is unsettling or hard to understand. Unusual. Have I upset you in some manner?" though he does agree with Billy on his speech about family and loved ones. "I find myself in agreement. Historically speaking, this emotion causes one to go to undeniable lengths and even to the destruction of oneself in the effort of saving those close to them. It is illogical, yet it is entirely reasonable that one is willing to throw away all manner of rationality for what they hold dear. I would wish to know the feeling."
Regardless, he seems to look between Billy and Keith.
"…are you two teammates of a sort?"
"Its is entirely logical, … Victor." Billy stares long and hard at the man for a moment, "You will live only so long; your offspring will carry your legacy. There are any number of people you can question trusting, your family you don't have to question. These make you strong. The question is, … is Oneself the important thing to preserve? Or is whats most important to you? There is nothing illogical if you have a priority higher and more important then self to preserve." He shakes his head firmlyy, "You assume its irrational to throw away self-interest; you're wrong. Re-evaluate. It is the essence of what it is to be sentient to *decide* what is essential. Self-interest is a fine choice. I won't argue you're wrong. But: the Greater Good is another choice you can't argue against."
On the question of who is Strange? Billy goes quiet.
"I'm sorry about your mother," Keith says, more subdued now so as not to be misinterpreted. He glances at Billy. "Easy there, J. S. Mill-" he says to Billy in a gentle, but teasing, manner, "You are about to go all normative ethics on the poor boy and you haven't even offered him a cuppa coffe as thanks for joining our beating up of lowlives." Some may underestimate Keith for his more streetwise attitude, but there is a lot of book learnin' behind the insouciant attitude, even if some may take him for a rebel without a clause.
"I'm beat, so I'll let you two do with the formalities." He evades answering the team question, because it's Billy's prerogative to give information on that. And it is by now established that if it were up to Keith, Vincent could sneeze and the Cheshire could end up telling him the story of his life, re-enacted with hand-puppet, after saying 'Gesundheit.' He's a sucker for green eyes- not that he would admit it to anyone.
"I'll catch you soon, Merlin," the Cheshire says playfully and for a moment reaches to mess up Billy's hair… and realize that he'd have to lower the hood to do so, which would ruin Billy's look of Majestic Magical Mystery, and that would be poor teamwork.
Instead, he pats Billy. On the hood.
"Pleasure to meet you ,Vic. Maybe we'll cross paths and punch people some more," he grins and tips his hat- literally, a hat appears out of thin air for him to tip before vanishing again. Then, Keith uses a Rabbit Hole to depart.
Billy might be plesedd to see that he is not departing for their secret place, but it looks like it is a beach somewhere in the tropics. From there, he will depart to their secret place… but it wouldn't do to have such a secret place out for all to see, right?
Sometimes, he does remember.
r
Victor seems to tilt his head at Billy, but nevertheless agrees with a simple nod to apparently resurmise his database about emotion when it comes to the mysterious quantity known as 'love'. "Very well. I will have to change my calculations then based on my present knowledge. With these factors in mind, I should be able to draw a 'better' conclusion." Might be a hint for Billy that Victor isn't exactly human. Of course, Victor also said his father was a megalomaniacal artificial intelligence. Anyway.
As Keith takes his leave, Victor gives him a soft smile and a light wave. "That is my hope. Until next we meet, Keith." his eyes eventually shift right on back to Billy.
He noticed he went quiet, before Vince lifts a hand. "You don't have to answer that."
Billy regards Victor for a long moment, then shrugs his shoulders, and goes over to sit at the edge of the roof, "Of course, your conclusions are your own and you don't have to accept my… data. But I find if people only worry about self-interest, if there's _nothing_ more important then that to you, then you can easily go down a path that takes you into a dark place to where you end up being described by your son as 'megalomanical'. Having something more important then yourself— whatever it is, is up to you— is like a shield against that."
Victor watches as Billy moves himself over to the edge, and soon enough, Billy will find himself followed as he's sat next to by the machine-man. Soft smile on his face as he takes in Billy's words. "Very interesting. Perhaps I will have much to learn from you and others of this generation." though now that Vorpal has left, and it's just the two of them, Victor looks at Billy. "Where are you from, Wiccan? Or rather, when?" he asks curiously, long having deduced that Wiccan was not from this time period.
The last question has Billy turning a surprise dlook over to Victor, tilting his head. He lifts his gloved hands up and pushes the hood off his head, not that his hookd is really a lot of a facial disguise. "I don't know, actually. My memory— and the memory of my brother Speed— got twisted by the magic that brought us here. Its… at least two decades, I'm guessing, though that's only a guess. I know a lot of facts, but not the context that makes those facts useful or meaningful. How about _you_? When are you from? AI isn't anywhere near existing yet." Pause, "Wait, unless you're one of his robots?! The Leader?" Suddenly he's wary.
Victor appears to nod very lightly after Billy's words. "I see. A reason why I do not trust magic. Too much can happen…I am surprised that both of our presences here hasn't caused a time distortion. I long expected to disappear by now by somehow inadvertently influencing the future where I am created." He shrugs lightly. Though when asked about when he's from, he speaks plainly. "I am from the year 2018. I was not created by The Leader, I was created by Ultron. I wound up here in the past in a failed attempt to destroy him, for he sought to use me to murder that time period's Avengers."
"Oh, no, I don't think time works like that at all." Billy shakes his head slowly, "There's no way you coming here didn't create an alternate timestream; the timestream you were in before still exists and changing the past now can't possibly alter it. You've crossed over into a new one. You might end up changing it so in the future of this one a new you didn't get made, that ends up in _another_, but its possible not. There's no telling. Anyways, due to what we did— it wasn't an intentional time spell, but a magical confluence when my magic in the future an my mom's magic now touched across spacetime due to a major dimensional distortion. I suspect the timeline I'm from has collapsed completely now." He pauses, "Yeah don't murder the Avengers, they're good guys. Also try just not to murder in general."
Victor seems to truly consider multiverse theory in that sense. Because he was sent to the past, it must mean that he was -meant- to be sent to the past for the creation of multiple timelines. One action taken, one action not taken, both will create 'branches' in the timestream. It's complex, but it's enough information to drive anyone who tries to wrap their mind around it mad. Though he tilts his head at Billy. "I see. Stranger things have occured." he shrugs lightly. "I do not intend to be what I was created to be, Wiccan." of course he knew his real name, but he didn't want to offend. Regardless, he shrugs. "So then…I do not believe it was answered previously. But are you and Vorpal teammates? You two seem to have an extensive background with one another."
As it happens, Billy's version of looking at magic is far more scientific then some, so they can communicate better then Victor might be able to talk to another mage. But he nods his head to Victor, "I don't know if I was created TO be anything but a kid who likes hugs. Everything else is all me." He hesitates, then shakes his head, "Oh, I've known him for awhile but the background isn't as extensive as it looks. Still, yes. We're on the Contingency Plan, a team my b— Hulkling and I and a few others set up. We're not the Avengers. They save the world. We try to save, say, the western hemisphere, or maybe just the city. We're what's waiting if someone flies under the Avengers notice." There is no Young Avengers in this continuum, but clearly something like it has emerged on its own.
Victor notices that Billy is no fool, and at least xplains things in a way that Victor can scientifically quantify. At the very least. With that said, he appears to tilt his head slightly. "Is this your way of asking for a hug?" he asks Billy curiously before he listens about this..Contingency Plan, which sounds a great deal like how the Young Avengers were set up, of which he was a honorary member thanks to his connection with Vision. "I see. It sounds like a group that I would like to be a part of, if I can. I like helping people." Victor explains to Billy.
Billy blinks at Victor, and he has to laugh, dimples showing as he shakes his head, "No, no I was not hitting on you. I get plenty of hugs. That wasn't my point." He shakes his head thoughtfully, "Helping people is good." he agrees with a nod, "Though I can't just… make a command decision and invite you in. But I can set up a meeting. There's a few of us, not all of us do every thing. I can set up a meeting. Hulkling, first. If he says no its a no, no offense, but we're a team he and I." 'Team'.
Victor tilts his head at Billy, wondering why he laughs lightly at his words until his thinking is revealed. "I see. Very well. I will meet this 'Hulkling' and see what he says about me. I hope he doesn't think I'm like my father…though I don't know why he would." though he hears the word 'team' said with that hint of affection in Billy's voice. Since they were alone, Victor asks. "….are you and this Hulkling a mated pair?" It wasn't accusatory or even teasing, it was like the curiosity of a child who's trying to learn more about the world. It's especially not said from a standpoint that would cause Billy to feel judged in any way.
"He wouldn't even know who your father is. He'll know what you tell him— which I advise is more rather then less. Its a sign of good faith." If Billy were not from the future, he might splutter. As it is, he's had to seriously _restrain_ the openness he remembered having, so he just gives a half-shrug and a nod, "I don't know that 'mated' is quite the right word because mating implies that procreation is part of the purpose of the pairing, and that's obviously biologically impossible." He grins then, dimples showing, "We are in a committed relationship, yes. We're partners. This time period is _so_ annoying about that, too. I won't even tell him that eventually gay marriage is going to be a thing, it'd be frustrating."
Victor nods very softly to Billy as he speaks. "hmm…alright, I will tell him what I believe he should know." he shrugs very softly though as Billy starts to describe the ridiculousness of the times regarding gay marriage and gay rights. "But it may eventually happen. Even if this timeline might be different or take longer. You could likely do the same thing even now, but to avoid the natural prejudice against it that this time period possesses, you may wish to do it in secret for now." Victor advises Billy before he looks out into the city. "Thank you for trusting me enough to meet with others of this…contingency plan."
"You can show good faith as many times as you want." notes Billy softly, rising, "But you can break faith only once. Remember that when deciding what people should know." Then he waves a hand a bit, "What's the point if its a secret? And hey, don't worry about it. Its not that I'm trusting you, but I'm completely sure that if push comes to shove Hulkling could break you into five pieces without really being bothered and so is up to him to decide. I'm not trusting you. I'm giving you a chance. Showing good faith. You show back, good. There's very little in the way of second chances on stuff like this, just saying." He looks around, "I should get going."
Victor looks to Billy with a tilt of his head. "I do not understand where the offhand threat of Hulkling wishing to crush me comes from. Have I misspoken anywhere?" he asks curiously before he shrugs. Victor is very confident in his abilities. Regardless, he seems to smile to Billy. "As should I. It's been quite a long night, after all. Thank you for enjoying the conversation with me and for your help with the bank robbery foiling." he then stands up and seems to turn heel, walking away from Billy "I'll see you soon."
"It wasn't a threat so much as a… its not trust that makes me introduce you. Because I am confident he can meet you even if you're lying or meaning us harm. He'll be fine. Trust is me letting you meet my family." explains Billy witha slight shrug of his own, "Some thinks are risks. Meetingi the Hulkling is not. No trust required. That's why its the first step."
Victor pauses in his step before he looks to Billy. "Fair enough." with that said, Victor starts to fly into the night sky. "Until next we meet, Wiccan." and once that's said, Victor disappears into the night!