fjordicswagger | An Irish Pub in Baltimore, Tuesday Night

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An Irish Pub in Baltimore, Tuesday Night

Okay, so sue Tamsin, sometimes she liked to be reminded of home. Specifically, to be reminded of the Dal, with that wonderful vibe of a-bar-fight-could-break-out-at-any-minute coupled with our-drinks-can-probably-kill-you-if-you're-not-careful.

This place fit the bill. More or less.

She'd gotten sucked in here for dinner, wound up in an arm-wrestling match with someone shortly thereafter, and somewhere in between, she'd texted Jessica to meet her here.

At least beating that big burly dude at arm-wrestling had done wonders for her mood.

[[ for jessica! ]]

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"Different universes. They're similar, but mine was objectively worse than his is," Jessica said. "A couple years ago, my America went through a massive civil war that split the country in several pieces, one of which was run by robots that had concentration camps for mutants."

"We actually kind of had our act together as a world before everything literally blew up."

"I'm going to have to go back on that question I asked you before," Tamsin said, eyeing her. "Does anybody in your universe have time to have hobbies?"

"Not the people I spent most of my time with," Jessica said. "For a while, one of them was President, so I got to bounce between fighting a war alongside the President and being a student here."

"I'm great at time management."

"You'd have to be," Tamsin said, considering her. "I mean, you found time to have drinks."

Which Tamsin appreciated, even if she wasn't terribly great at saying so.

"Have you ever thought about doing something else?"

Damn it, she was actually curious.

Jessica took a sip of her drink as she considered how to approach the story. "There's a mantra that I inherited from the person I was cloned from. A petty crime could have been stopped but wasn't, and the criminal killed somebody very important to us. It would have been absolutely nothing to prevent that, but... sometimes you make a selfish mistake. I didn't technically live it, but I'll have it in my memory forever. And that reinforced the mantra; with great power, there must also come great responsibility."

"I have the strength, the training, the intelligence... I have the legacy of truly great people on my shoulders. I'm not saying any of that to brag, not out of ego. I'm saying that so you get a picture of the kind of responsibility I feel. And I'm strong enough to bear that responsibility. I refuse to let that go to waste," Jessica said. "So, no. I do what I have to do. I'm doing it on a smaller scale than I have in the past, but I'm doing it."

That was a level of do-gooding Tamsin hadn't been able to work up the heart for in a very long time, which made her feel guilty. She tried to ignore it.

"So that's how career good guys are born," she said. "Cute."

That would've sounded more sarcastic if she hadn't sounded so subdued about it. Stupid guilt.

"Created in an evil scientist's evil science lab, technically," Jessica said. "But I am cute, so."

"True," Tamsin said, sipping her drink. "A very cute kind of evil science."

"Thank you. But what about you? I mean, you're the mayor, you spent some time at the Trooper Station. I'm not completely sure you like people in general," Jessica said, leaning into a jokey tone, even if she thought it sounded accurate, "but you've kind of carved a niche for yourself in the public servant sector in Fandom. Why that and not opening up a shop or something?"

"Because customer service is gross," Tamsin said, which was only partly to stall for time, really. "But really, I come from a battlefield, law enforcement kind of family."

Well, that was technically accurate.

"Most of my family growing up were military. Nurses or soldiers," she said. "So I went into service. Military first, then private sector." Which, again, was at least an accurate if misleading way of summing up the past over-a-thousand-years. "When I got the opportunity to join the police force, it just seemed more useful, I guess."

Somewhat to her. Mostly to the Morrigan.

"Makes sense. And then you naturally transitioned into local politics," Jessica noted.

"More like Bright Eyes decided she wanted me for the job after Swanson left and parked herself outside my house for days until I said yes," Tamsin muttered. "Sometimes I miss kicking down doors."

"You could always just kick down doors in Town Hall to see what kind of reaction that gets," Jessica suggested.

"It'd definitely be funny to see the look on Bright Eyes' face," Tamsin mused. "Bet she'd startle like a deer."

She took a sip of her drink. "I don't hate all people, by the way," she said. "My p-- family is just not very huggy awww-emotional. Tough love."

"I never thought you did. I know you like people like me and Tony well enough," Jessica said. "And I suspect that you kind of even like people like Ralph and Bright Eyes. But I'll never pressure you to admit that. Or tell them." She'll just always have her suspicions.

"Thanks," Tamsin said. She smiled faintly. "I've got a reputation to uphold."

"And I wouldn't want to mess with that," Jessica said. "Just curious, how'd you hear about this place? Do you come here a lot, or were the Yelp ratings just too good?" It had a certain charm, but probably not the type that would be well represented on Yelp.

"Sometimes I get bored of hanging out watching zombie limbs fall off," Tamsin said dryly. "Which I said out loud the first time I was here and it turns out they run into people from the island all the damn time. Unflappable's good in a pub." Beat. "It wouldn't surprise me if there were superhero meet-ups in here, actually."

"Well, that's just going to force me to look around and see if I can pick out any superheroes in disguise," Jessica said, turning around to do just that.

"Are they that easy to spot?" Tamsin asked. "Are there like, superhero tells I don't know about?"

"Some are better at hiding it than others. You'd be surprised how many talk openly about it and just figure nobody can overhear them," Jessica said as she scanned the crowd..

"That kind of ruins the whole Secret Identity vibe, doesn't it?" said Tamsin, tilting her head. "... Which you don't have, do you? Huh."

"I used to. But when your world blows up, there's not much need to keep all of your secrets anymore," Jessica said. "Although even before then, my job was with the government and all of my friends were either superheroes or people from Fandom who might have seen me fight during graduation. So I'm not the best candidate for a fully secret identity anyway."

Tamsin nodded. She looked towards the crowd. "So, any hits?"

"That's between me and them," Jessica said. "But I'll just say that if something crazy attacks, this bar will still be standing by the end of it."

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An Irish Pub in Baltimore, Tuesday Night

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