undergrounds | AVENGERS ASSEMBLE

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AVENGERS ASSEMBLE

The bloodlust was a step too far. Kyle already hated vampires before the event, his species's natural predator. Then the Fae were opening doors into their world, Daybreak was persecuting seemingly innocent members of Midnight while claiming they were practicing Necromagic, and the wolves even had their own kill-some-humans Festival. The supernatural world was a shitty, terrible place for people who were trying to live their lives in peace. And while there were Guardians meant to look out for and protect people, they followed loose laws more concerned with protecting their secrets than in saving lives.

So he started putting the word out. He didn't really know what he was doing, or what he was trying to create. Maybe a new squad. Maybe a book club where instead of weekly reading, they killed guilty parties. He wasn't sure. By definition, he was trying to put together a group of vigilantes.

He put the word out. Coded flyers here, whispers in Hillingdon there, and so on. He reached out to the people he knew and those he'd heard about who might happen to agree with his cause. Anyone and everyone was welcome, regardless of race or faction. Except the vampires he still hated.

[ooc: Kyle is trying to put together a vigilante squad. What the group does will mostly be up to the group, but may include bounty hunting, saving people in trouble, killing 'villains', and so on. Anyone is welcome to chat with him about it, regardless of their interest in joining.]

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That answer actually, while it makes perfect sense, happens to be incredibly frustrating. Nancy purses her lips and sets her own chopsticks down.

"Not even my friends?" If Cooper came over, he could feed in her room, that would be fine. But if Kyle wanted her to live in a vampire-free space, she supposed she could make do. Though not being able to have her friends over in the first place would certainly be awful.

"Why the hell would you be friends with a vampire?" He asks honestly. Maybe one of those flukes, like Natasha, who seems to have given up on feeding on humans. For as long as she lasts. But normal vampires are literally their natural predators and usually assholes to boot. After the recent bloodfest, Kyle can't imagine wanting to know any of them.

"You saw what they did. Is that really okay with you?"

Nancy's green eyes narrow. "excuse me?" That was unexpected from someone she considered relatively reasonable. She understands it, to a degree. But painting everyone with a brush of hatred only lead to misunderstandings and misinformation.

her hand moves to her neck, tracing the marks that she covered with magic and makeup. somedays, they were the same thing. "not all of them. Some of my closest friends are vampires- and my clients." She'd blurred the line with Cooper perhaps too far. And sometimes those vampire friends couldn't control themselves- Kenzi had nearly killed her. But Kenzi was a newborn and wouldn't have otherwise. she believed that.

"And I mean- didn't you all rebel against us? so why would I want to be friends with an American, right?" Her tone is short, but she tries to keep it light. She cares about her friends. Regardless of their propensity for feeding on blood or not.

"You're kidding, right? You have to be kidding," he laughs humorlessly, tossing his chopsticks onto the table without much care. "You're seriously comparing something that happened hundreds of years ago with the same species arguing about rights and what happened, oh, a week ago in which one species committed genocide on others just because they can? That's the argument you're going to make?"

He stares at her, waiting for her response. Because if that's the path she's going down, ridiculous hyperbole and comparing normal war to a war between lions and gazelles, then he's not going to bother trying to talk it out or be reasonable with her. He's seen both types up close. They're not the same.

Humans can be terrible people. Kyle will never argue that. And he won't disagree that there are the occasional outliers who might be alright. But that's not what she's saying.

Nancy rolls her eyes. fine okay so it was an antiquated comparison but to her it remained potent. She didn't have Kyle's education or worldly experience. she was a girl from London who grew up too fast. The big picture was never her strong suit when all her energy was focused on getting past tomorrow.

"It's not perfect, but-" She presses her lips together. "Look- you can't just paint all vampires as evil and having participated. It's not even genocide-" she isn't thinking about the wolves. "what happened was awful- terrifying. I was out with a friend and-" and she'd been attacked. "Millicent was wrong. I will not say otherwise. But not all vampires, Kyle. Not my friends. But saying all of them? The generalizations don't help anyone and they don't prove any points." which is why she was going to say she went with her Revolutionary War metaphor.

"I didn't say they all participated. But they're predators. You get that, right? Unless they choose to stop feeding on people, they're our predators. Not all of them, no, but most of them. Enough of them. I'm sure some Nazis were okay people too, but I sure as shit wouldn't go around assuming they're good."

One hyperbole deserves another. He sighs, takes another sip of the gin, and frowns. He's not the type to abandon his friends over differences of opinion, but the idea of Nancy bringing her vampire friends to hang out at his place is unacceptable. There's nothing safe about a home in which your enemies can come and go.

"You were attacked and you're still friends with them." He knows. Natasha called him to help. "I don't get that. But I'm not trying to control you or your life or your choices or what the fuck ever. All I'm saying is, no vampires in the apartment if you want to live there. Hell, I'll compromise. If they don't feed on people and I meet them first, maybe they can come by."

"I wouldn't let them feed on you if that's what you're thinking-!" Seriously, she's a decent person. Too decent. she wouldn't leave Kenzi alone, that night. even if she should have. She purses her lips but let's the nazi comment go.

they weren't her enemies, that was the thing. And to her it seemed insulting not to let her friends come inside. And to have a second home she didn't tell them about-? But she and Kyle were from different worlds. He was still human, after all.

When he says it, she looks down and away, a blush coloring her cheeks. Why did he have to say it like that? "she wasn't in control," she mutters, because she can't let him just assume Kenzi is like that always. She isn't. "that's not her usually." It was when she fed on her that first night.

But she can accept those terms. Maybe. She still hasn't agreed to this whole thing yet.

"I'm not talking about me!" He practically talks over her to counter the point. Kyle knows that they wouldn't feed on him because he'll kill them first if it comes to it. He means in general. Like Natasha allegedly doesn't eat people. He wants to leave those caveats, just in case. "I'm talking about people. Any people. Human beings."

He huffs a little. Kyle can't judge Nancy too harshly for being attacked and remaining friends. He's dating Alex after all his shit with werewolves, after all. But vampires are natural predators and it pisses him off that most of the supernatural community seems to conveniently forget or ignore that fact.

"Just let me know." Kyle moves to stand from the table, leaving the drink and food and everything else. He's not revoking the offer and won't challenge their friendship over this, but he's angry and hurt and wants to be done with the conversation if there's nothing new to say.

"Kyle-" Nancy reaches her hand out, touching his to get him to pause. They didn't need to be fighting, as much as it drove her absolutely crazy. She looks up at him, her green eyes wide and understanding. "Look. Part of my job- I let them feed on me. That's part of why I do it- to keep them from feeding off the unwilling. I think they're not all bad. That's all."

She doesn't want to fight with him, she realizes. They're both stubborn enough they know they'll end a friendship over this. She's got so few friends- real friends, not sometimes clients- that losing one sounds like an unrecoverable blow. She likes Kyle.

And she likes looking at him shirtless.

"But I understand." Not everyone was brought up like she was. Not everyone had the same experiences she did. She could see that.

Kyle stops when she touches his hand, standing beside the table and debating whether it was worth leaving. Until her words hit and he falls back into his chair, withdrawing his hand as he gawks at her. The surprise transforms to something pensive, angry, then pensive again. It's a lot to take in. Feeding on her so they don't feed on the unwilling, as if that makes them less bad. He has trouble comprehending what he views as a kind of willing victimization.

"I don't," he spits out finally. Kyle drops his arm onto the table and buries his face in his elbow, giving him the peace of a false solitude to think for a moment. It only lasts a moment before he straightens again.

"Why do you let them attack you? Is your self esteem really that low?" He asks angrily, very clearly trying to keep his temper in check. Kyle realizes how bad a question the latter is the moment he says it, frowning. His voice softens. "I'm sorry. But I don't get it. What makes what you're doing any less crazy than letting someone stab you for fun, or rape you? It's fucked up, Nancy."

Nancy had been fooling herself to think Kyle would react any other way. What she did- blood work, it was looked down on by society, even more than prostitution was. She presses her lips together, looking down.

Appetite now long-gone, Nancy reaches for her gin, taking a sip. No one had ever flat-out asked her if her self esteem was that low. No one had ever been angry when she told them. Mostly, it was disgust. Maybe that's what this was, too. Disgust with her for being so thoroughly used. Disgust with himself for being her friend in the first place.

Her chest felt empty.

"I'm sorry," she says, her voice quietly, both hands holding on to her glass. "It is different. I'm careful." She put a lot of trust in the vampires that tore into her veins. Very rarely did they betray that trust. If they did, there was a bottle of blood toxin in her purse at all times, along with her magic at the ready.

"It's what I've always done."

"You don't have to do it just because you always have. Do you like it? Is that it? Does it help get you off or meet some need to be wanted? What is it? I'm trying to understand here." Angry as he is, Kyle's telling the truth. He wants to understand what the hell could compel someone to willingly be injured for the sake of someone sick in the head.

"What makes it different? What makes them different?" Different from the ones he fought in Pretoria and Johannesburg, different from the ones that injured and killed members of his squad. Hell, different from the vampires who had roamed the street only nights before to feed freely on whoever they could get their hands on.

She keeps her head down, letting the anger he was feeling wash over her. "it's not- it's not bad for me. There's a cross-over that makes it easy to bring one thing to the other." Sex and blood, they always went hand in hand.

"I've met a lot of good vampires, Kyle. That are thankful that I'm there. A lot are shy about it. I'm just trying to make a living, to help out my brothers." Even now, she was sending money to the boys from what she made. Fagin was a bastard and she wanted to do all she could to help them all.

"I've been doing this a long time." She isn't the best at answering questions she doesn't have answers to. l

"Good vampires? What, the ones that can feel less guilty by paying for their blood rather than taking it?" He can't help the bitterness in his voice. Kyle's okay with Natasha for now, but she's the exception rather than the rule. She's not one of the ones feeding on Nancy. At least so far as he knows.

He lets out a sigh and stands again, shaking his head. "It's your life. You want to do stupid shit, I'm not going to stop you. But you know I can't support it either. If you really want to be friends with the monsters that are running around attacking and killing other people, that's on you. You want to live with me? You let me know. But no vampires."

"They need it to live. I'd rather them get it from someone willing than taking it from someone else." Nancy would stand by that philosophy. Someone who knew Death was just around the corner, rather than some innocent.

She doesn't need his support. Or anything. Maybe his acknowledgement, but she doubted now if anything happened to her again, that he'd say anything. That he'd be willing to take her side. It wasn't exactly the most welcoming of feelings.

"No vampires," she repeats, because she can respect his rules. She wouldn't bring them into a space where they weren't welcome. She can assume the same for fae, too. And the result is, honestly, a place that's safe for her. And only her.

The idea has never occurred to her, and as such, she's trying to sabotage it already.

That was the fundamental difference in their beliefs. Kyle knew it the moment he heard it. As far as he was concerned, they didn't need to live. Vampires deserved to die in order for humanity to live. But like hell was he about to argue that point. He knew better, knew that Nancy had her own issues to match his, that their opinions on this would never agree. He also knew it still wasn't worth destroying their friendship over. She could be an addict as long as the dealers and the drugs never came into the house, so to speak.

He still had her back, and would. Kyle was pretty sure she wouldn't get that. Most civilians didn't understand how you could hate something about someone and still take a bullet for them. If it became relevant, he'd be there. Until then, he preferred to be angry about her stupidity.

"No vampires," he repeats again, to avoid arguing the rest of what she said further. "You don't have to decide now, but you deserve a place where no one's going to hurt you. Whether you want them to or not."

She did have her own issues. Perhaps more than playboy. And yes, a good number of them did have to do with vampires, but honestly, for all her work with them she was far more tangled up with the fae. Not the safest sort of roommate, but this was a place that could protect them both. That Nancy could finally just... relax. She always thought she was relaxed at home, but she currently didn't have any vampires or fae wanting to hurt her. Witches were the ones that were the problems.

She nods. "Thank... thank you, Kyle. I really, really appreciate it. I'll think about it." She looked up at last, blinking.

The tension in the room was still thick, and Nancy, from all her experience in this sort of thing, knew to break it. "But if you have that rule, then I'll want one of my own- you aren't allowed to wear a shirt." She smiled at him, hoping he appreciated the joke.

It's the perfect thing to say in the moment and Kyle can't help the smile that spreads across his lips even if he wanted to. He doesn't care about being unsafe himself. He's used to that. He wants someone he can bond with, to take care of and who will take care of him, to feel a little less isolated. It's the bromance he misses the most.

"Deal," he agrees, though his voice remains tight. Her remark served to cut the tension and ensure they're good, but it can't immediately destroy his anger. Damn vampires. Anyone but them and he'd be handling it a lot better. "I have to get going. Think about it, Nancy. Really do."

He moves around the table to begin making his exit, casually, easy for her to stop him if she wants. "I'll try to be shirtless next time."

They'll take some time, they'll cool down, and she'll give him her answer. Hopefully he's not mad at her. But she wouldn't be surprised if she was the root cause of it, rather than the vampires and her self-esteem.

"I will." She stands, planning on finishing both drinks once he's gone. "Thank you for stopping by. And the offer." They're good. Just a fight between friends. Which felt surprisingly good to say.

"Looking forward to it." She walks him to the door.

Kyle mostly walks himself to the door, though he appreciates the gesture. He briefly considers hugging her before instead leaning forward to give her a light kiss on the cheek. It's done as casually as a hug might have been, an intentionally simple gesture to show that he still cares about her, even if he's pissed and dislikes her company.

"Take care of yourself, okay?" It's a rhetorical question and Kyle's halfway out the door by the time she can even answer.

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AVENGERS ASSEMBLE

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#notallmen

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back from hiatus, feel free to handwave if you prefer

never

<3

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