Betsy and Cal - Backdated
Oct. 8th, 2018 05:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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ax_mainAn apology leads to grilled cheese sandwiches.
Cal was doing better by now. He still felt awkward as fuck at the thought of going outside, anywhere that had people (wasn't that fucked up, too? wasn't he more at risk in a deserted area?), but attending classes had brought a much needed sense of normalcy into his life, and he'd started to hang out with people who weren't Clint and Caleb, or Loki. Illyana had popped over, and he'd spent time with Clarice, too. He was even, slowly, learning to let people into his space again, mostly thanks to Loki's mutation.
Loki's mutation was a fucking godsend, pun fully intended.
This all meant that by now, he had no more excuse not to have apologized to Betsy yet. Now it was just a question of finding the right time to strike up a conversation with her. Putting on his big boy pants and just fucking doing it.
That afternoon, with the weather so heavy you knew a storm was coming, Cal was making the most of the lack of rain while it lasted. He was outside with Abs, a gray, blue-eyed wolf-dog running alongside an ever-growing golden retriever puppy. Just a few more months and she'd be as tall as she was going to be, now. When he spotted Betsy reading something a little way off, Cal's run slowed to a walk, and he barked at Abs when she kept running full barrel. He shifted back into himself, a teenage boy in a tank top, jeans and flip-flops, and called out, "Abs!"
Yeah, she was definitely a teenage dog now. She only looked back at him, slowed a little, barked at him invitingly, then turned back around to take up running towards Betsy.
Absorbed as she was by her book, it took Betsy a moment to understand what she'd seen - namely a wolf turning into a boy. Not just any boy, but Cal. Hmm. She suspected he'd rather not speak to her, so she went back to her book.
Cal had been hoping to, like, ask Betsy if he could have a word with her. What happened instead was that a very enthusiastic adolescent dog barged in on her reading, nosing at her book inquisitively before nudging at Betsy's hand for some petting. Cal winced, and jogged forward to catch up with his dog.
"Sorry," he told Betsy with an apologetic grimace, when he arrived. "She only listens to me about 40% of the time, these days."
Betsy reached over and scratched Abs behind the ears as closed her book (for its own protection). "Don't worry. She's sweet," she assured Cal politely.
Abs's tail wagged happily at the scratches, and Cal suppressed a sigh. "Thanks. Hey, I, uh. Do you have a minute?"
She arched a perfectly manicured eyebrow. "Sure," Betsy said, curious where this was going.
It felt odd, talking to her standing while she was sitting, so Cal joined her on the grass, folding his knees and sitting back on his heels. Not a comfortable position, long-term, so it didn't look like he was going to stick around if she didn't want him to. "I wanted to apologize. For last time we talked. I know it was forever ago, and I should have done it sooner, but shit happened and - I mean, I'm sorry. I was an asshole. You deserved better."
She met his eyes, and managed not to succumb to the impulse to read his mind. Cal wasn't the sort for subterfuge or untruths, and so, Betsy decided, she could take his words at face value. Even if she thought he was wrong; Kwannon had been gone, but she'd still taken something precious when she'd leapt bodies. "Apology accepted. To the extent one is needed."
"It was. Is. Whatever." Cal gave her a soft smile. "Sorry. And sorry for interrupting your reading."
"Not to worry," she assured him easily. "I was about to finish up in any case. You can just feel the rain coming."
"Yeah," Cal agreed, glancing up at the cloud-covered sky. "Any minute now." He still felt awkward, and unsure whether he should leave her alone or not.
Betsy stood up and offered him a hand. What he'd said had hurt, but that had faded in time and she appreciated the effort she knew this must have taken. "Come on then."
Cal hesitated for a brief instant - but yeah, sure, he could do it. It wouldn't be a long touch, or anything. Not anywhere near long enough to be an issue. He reached for her hand, appreciating the gesture for what it was, and used it to get back to his feet before releasing it. There. No awkwardness needed. "Yo, Abs," he called the dog, who had wandered off to investigate a nearby bush. "We're heading back. Come on, girl!"
Betsy smiled slightly at his acceptance and his willingness to trust that she could temporarily brace his weight. "Hungry?" Betsy asked.
"Always, after a run," Cal confirmed, even as thunder rumbled in the distance. The odd drop began to fall. "Good timing, too."
"Kitchen or cafeteria?" Betsy asked, apparently oblivious to the fact that her heels were not particularly practical for walking, let alone in the rain.
"Kitchen?" Cal offered instinctively. He tended to choose the option with the least crowds, although he had taken to eating in the cafeteria again. Maybe he just wanted to spend some time with Betsy, one on one. That was cool, right? "You wanna portal there?"
As the rain began in earnest, Betsy chuckled. "That sounds like a brilliant idea, yes."
A portal blinked open a few feet ahead of them, in a flash of pink energy. "After you," he said, and looked back to check that the portal was having its other desired effect. And yeah, Abs was running towards it now. If Cal could always count on one thing, it was her love of portals.
What a weird ass dog. And he loved her for it.
Betsy stepped through and, just like that, was in the kitchen. "Handy," she murmured. She caught a glimpse of herself in the reflective surface of the microwave door and smirked ruefully. All the glamour and charm of a wet cat, there. Ah well.
She chuckled softly as Abs made it inside and began to shake herself dry. "If I could get away with doing that, I would too," she told her.
"I wouldn't blame you for it," Cal assured her with a half smile, even as the portal vanished behind him. He ran a hand back through his hair, spiking it up where the rain had started to flatten it to his skull. "So, the sum total of my culinary skills involves fixing myself snacks, or microwaving shit."
"Hmmm...let's see what they have in here, then," Betsy said, reaching up to shake at least a bit of water out of her own hair. She opened the cupboards to search, before scouring the kitchen. "I'm not a culinary expert myself, but I think we do have the necessary ingredients for some decent grilled cheese sandwiches."
"That's totally in my wheelhouse," Cal confirmed, taking some cheese out of the fridge.
"Mine too, limited though my wheelhouse may be," she said smiling. Betsy pulled out a loaf of sliced sourdough bread. "I fear I never really learned to cook."
"Me neither," Cal replied, moving around her to get a pan out of a cupboard. There was a pause, as he set it on the stove and got it started. "I mean, Dad was pretty terrible with cooking us stuff, so it was a lot of takeaway, and a lot of really basic snacks." He could talk about his father. It was fine. He was fine.
"I'm not sure I've ever seen either of my parents cook," Betsy confessed. "I only learned when I left home."
"Was your family like, hella rich?" Cal asked, as he dropped some butter into the pan. She sounded posh enough, but that didn't have to mean much.
"Something like that," she admitted. "We weren't the Shaws or the Worthingtons or anything, but luckier than most."
"So why'd you get into modeling?" Cal asked curiously. It clearly wasn't about the money.
Betsy shrugged a little. "An agency asked if I wanted to, and it sounded like an adventure." Her parents, supportive though they'd been, hadn't understood it, but Betsy had always wanted to do something all her own, and when an opportunity to had dropped into her lap, she'd had to take it.
"How old were you?" Cal asked as he dropped bread slices into the pan. There was no agenda behind the questions, really; mostly Cal rediscovering what it was like to want to get to know somebody, just because they seemed cool, and he could.
"Thirteen, and thus very convinced I knew what I was doing," Betsy chuckled.
Cal smiled at her, leaning back against the counter as the bread cooked. "It can't have gone that terribly, if there are so many pictures of you online." Abs nudged at his legs, and he moved again, to get her some food.
"The modeling went well," Betsy conceded, smiling back a bit nostalgically. "But I do not know that I understood what I was getting myself into."
"How's that?" Cal had plenty of preconceived ideas about the world of fashion, but he had no idea which might be true, if any.
"The pressures, the travel, the cynicism....I didn't have the best grasp of it all, going in," she said.
He set down a plate of food for Abs, and remained crouched beside her, petting her as she ate. "You think you'd have done a better job now?"
Betsy went over near the stove, to keep an eye on it. "I think a sixteen year old telepath with martial arts training is a bit better at telling arseholes to sod off than sheltered thirteen year old girls," she said simply. There were few things she feared, these days, but back then...she'd been as susceptible as any child.
Cal winced at the kind of things he was now imagining. "Didn't you have anyone with you to help?" If not one of her parents, a guardian of some sort? Fuck, no thirteen-year-old should ever be put in the position of having to tell assholes to 'sod off'.
"I had an agent," Betsy said, nodding slowly. She flipped their sandwiches to toast the other side, and then hopped up gracefully to sit on the counter. She rested her chin on a well-manicured hand, and then conceded, "though her job was to make sure I remained employed and employable, primarily, rather than to baby-sit me otherwise."
"Doesn't sound like enough," Cal sympathized, letting her flip the slices of bread before adding the cheese on the already toasted side.
She shrugged and watched him work. "It was what it was. I was luckier than most. And I got to do and see some amazing things."
"So you wouldn't take it back?" Cal asked, glancing at her before focusing back on the cheese.
Betsy shook her head 'no.' "I wouldn't. Despite..." Getting kidnapped? Nearly dying? Ending her entire life as she'd known it? "Well, despite everything."
Cal glanced at her, this time to check whether she looked as grave as she sounded. He had only really been asking about the modeling, but that sounded like... more. It was impressive, that she'd feel that way. He certainly wouldn't. He'd take back a whole bunch of shit, if it meant the Right never got his hands on him. "That's... something," he settled on, and gave her a small smile, before picking up the spatula to finally make sandwiches out of the bread and cheese.
"So," she said, a hint of tease to her voice, "I have to ask. How do you usually eat your grilled cheese? I find you can learn a lot about a person by discovering their grilled cheese habits."
As segues went, it wasn't her smoothest, but she suspected they both could use the levity and change of pace.
"A lot about them, and a lot about their mood," Cal agreed, happy to go with the change of topic. "Right now, I think, slice them in half, dip them in ketchup. You?"
Betsy nodded with feigned seriousness. "Interesting, very interesting. I'm a quarters and tomato soup girl myself, though given that I often do not bother to make the soup, I've used ketchup as well."
"Exactly," Cal nodded. "Ketchup is the easier option."
"The finish is a bit less smooth," she joked, employing her poshest Lady Braddock voice, "but there is something to be said for convenience."
Cal smirked at her. "Well, I'm an uncouth American, anyway," he pointed out, and grabbed the ketchup bottle out of the fridge.
She smirked right back at him, "Ah, but at least you're aware of it, which is a lovely change of pace." Betsy winked, to ensure the joke wasn't taken to heart.
"You know," Cal said conversationally, as he grabbed a bowl to squeeze out some ketchup into, "you're fixing grilled cheese sandwiches with me. I think that makes you an uncouth Brit. Or it'd all be crumpets and cucumber sandwiches, right?"
"Mmm," Betsy hummed. "Good point. Fortunately, I suppose, I've been bucking tradition for some time. I think it's the only reason Wisdom hasn't killed me."
"The guy you came in with?" Cal checked.
She nodded. "Surly, rumpled, sarcastic...but a good guy to have at your back. That's him."
Cal smiled at her conclusion, and nodded. "Good." Not the surly, etc, bit, but Betsy could use someone who had her back, from what she'd told Cal of her life so far.
He transferred the bowl to the island, then grabbed a plate to slide the grilled sandwiches into. "Time to be uncouth."
She grinned and slid gracefully off the counter. "Let's."
Cal was doing better by now. He still felt awkward as fuck at the thought of going outside, anywhere that had people (wasn't that fucked up, too? wasn't he more at risk in a deserted area?), but attending classes had brought a much needed sense of normalcy into his life, and he'd started to hang out with people who weren't Clint and Caleb, or Loki. Illyana had popped over, and he'd spent time with Clarice, too. He was even, slowly, learning to let people into his space again, mostly thanks to Loki's mutation.
Loki's mutation was a fucking godsend, pun fully intended.
This all meant that by now, he had no more excuse not to have apologized to Betsy yet. Now it was just a question of finding the right time to strike up a conversation with her. Putting on his big boy pants and just fucking doing it.
That afternoon, with the weather so heavy you knew a storm was coming, Cal was making the most of the lack of rain while it lasted. He was outside with Abs, a gray, blue-eyed wolf-dog running alongside an ever-growing golden retriever puppy. Just a few more months and she'd be as tall as she was going to be, now. When he spotted Betsy reading something a little way off, Cal's run slowed to a walk, and he barked at Abs when she kept running full barrel. He shifted back into himself, a teenage boy in a tank top, jeans and flip-flops, and called out, "Abs!"
Yeah, she was definitely a teenage dog now. She only looked back at him, slowed a little, barked at him invitingly, then turned back around to take up running towards Betsy.
Absorbed as she was by her book, it took Betsy a moment to understand what she'd seen - namely a wolf turning into a boy. Not just any boy, but Cal. Hmm. She suspected he'd rather not speak to her, so she went back to her book.
Cal had been hoping to, like, ask Betsy if he could have a word with her. What happened instead was that a very enthusiastic adolescent dog barged in on her reading, nosing at her book inquisitively before nudging at Betsy's hand for some petting. Cal winced, and jogged forward to catch up with his dog.
"Sorry," he told Betsy with an apologetic grimace, when he arrived. "She only listens to me about 40% of the time, these days."
Betsy reached over and scratched Abs behind the ears as closed her book (for its own protection). "Don't worry. She's sweet," she assured Cal politely.
Abs's tail wagged happily at the scratches, and Cal suppressed a sigh. "Thanks. Hey, I, uh. Do you have a minute?"
She arched a perfectly manicured eyebrow. "Sure," Betsy said, curious where this was going.
It felt odd, talking to her standing while she was sitting, so Cal joined her on the grass, folding his knees and sitting back on his heels. Not a comfortable position, long-term, so it didn't look like he was going to stick around if she didn't want him to. "I wanted to apologize. For last time we talked. I know it was forever ago, and I should have done it sooner, but shit happened and - I mean, I'm sorry. I was an asshole. You deserved better."
She met his eyes, and managed not to succumb to the impulse to read his mind. Cal wasn't the sort for subterfuge or untruths, and so, Betsy decided, she could take his words at face value. Even if she thought he was wrong; Kwannon had been gone, but she'd still taken something precious when she'd leapt bodies. "Apology accepted. To the extent one is needed."
"It was. Is. Whatever." Cal gave her a soft smile. "Sorry. And sorry for interrupting your reading."
"Not to worry," she assured him easily. "I was about to finish up in any case. You can just feel the rain coming."
"Yeah," Cal agreed, glancing up at the cloud-covered sky. "Any minute now." He still felt awkward, and unsure whether he should leave her alone or not.
Betsy stood up and offered him a hand. What he'd said had hurt, but that had faded in time and she appreciated the effort she knew this must have taken. "Come on then."
Cal hesitated for a brief instant - but yeah, sure, he could do it. It wouldn't be a long touch, or anything. Not anywhere near long enough to be an issue. He reached for her hand, appreciating the gesture for what it was, and used it to get back to his feet before releasing it. There. No awkwardness needed. "Yo, Abs," he called the dog, who had wandered off to investigate a nearby bush. "We're heading back. Come on, girl!"
Betsy smiled slightly at his acceptance and his willingness to trust that she could temporarily brace his weight. "Hungry?" Betsy asked.
"Always, after a run," Cal confirmed, even as thunder rumbled in the distance. The odd drop began to fall. "Good timing, too."
"Kitchen or cafeteria?" Betsy asked, apparently oblivious to the fact that her heels were not particularly practical for walking, let alone in the rain.
"Kitchen?" Cal offered instinctively. He tended to choose the option with the least crowds, although he had taken to eating in the cafeteria again. Maybe he just wanted to spend some time with Betsy, one on one. That was cool, right? "You wanna portal there?"
As the rain began in earnest, Betsy chuckled. "That sounds like a brilliant idea, yes."
A portal blinked open a few feet ahead of them, in a flash of pink energy. "After you," he said, and looked back to check that the portal was having its other desired effect. And yeah, Abs was running towards it now. If Cal could always count on one thing, it was her love of portals.
What a weird ass dog. And he loved her for it.
Betsy stepped through and, just like that, was in the kitchen. "Handy," she murmured. She caught a glimpse of herself in the reflective surface of the microwave door and smirked ruefully. All the glamour and charm of a wet cat, there. Ah well.
She chuckled softly as Abs made it inside and began to shake herself dry. "If I could get away with doing that, I would too," she told her.
"I wouldn't blame you for it," Cal assured her with a half smile, even as the portal vanished behind him. He ran a hand back through his hair, spiking it up where the rain had started to flatten it to his skull. "So, the sum total of my culinary skills involves fixing myself snacks, or microwaving shit."
"Hmmm...let's see what they have in here, then," Betsy said, reaching up to shake at least a bit of water out of her own hair. She opened the cupboards to search, before scouring the kitchen. "I'm not a culinary expert myself, but I think we do have the necessary ingredients for some decent grilled cheese sandwiches."
"That's totally in my wheelhouse," Cal confirmed, taking some cheese out of the fridge.
"Mine too, limited though my wheelhouse may be," she said smiling. Betsy pulled out a loaf of sliced sourdough bread. "I fear I never really learned to cook."
"Me neither," Cal replied, moving around her to get a pan out of a cupboard. There was a pause, as he set it on the stove and got it started. "I mean, Dad was pretty terrible with cooking us stuff, so it was a lot of takeaway, and a lot of really basic snacks." He could talk about his father. It was fine. He was fine.
"I'm not sure I've ever seen either of my parents cook," Betsy confessed. "I only learned when I left home."
"Was your family like, hella rich?" Cal asked, as he dropped some butter into the pan. She sounded posh enough, but that didn't have to mean much.
"Something like that," she admitted. "We weren't the Shaws or the Worthingtons or anything, but luckier than most."
"So why'd you get into modeling?" Cal asked curiously. It clearly wasn't about the money.
Betsy shrugged a little. "An agency asked if I wanted to, and it sounded like an adventure." Her parents, supportive though they'd been, hadn't understood it, but Betsy had always wanted to do something all her own, and when an opportunity to had dropped into her lap, she'd had to take it.
"How old were you?" Cal asked as he dropped bread slices into the pan. There was no agenda behind the questions, really; mostly Cal rediscovering what it was like to want to get to know somebody, just because they seemed cool, and he could.
"Thirteen, and thus very convinced I knew what I was doing," Betsy chuckled.
Cal smiled at her, leaning back against the counter as the bread cooked. "It can't have gone that terribly, if there are so many pictures of you online." Abs nudged at his legs, and he moved again, to get her some food.
"The modeling went well," Betsy conceded, smiling back a bit nostalgically. "But I do not know that I understood what I was getting myself into."
"How's that?" Cal had plenty of preconceived ideas about the world of fashion, but he had no idea which might be true, if any.
"The pressures, the travel, the cynicism....I didn't have the best grasp of it all, going in," she said.
He set down a plate of food for Abs, and remained crouched beside her, petting her as she ate. "You think you'd have done a better job now?"
Betsy went over near the stove, to keep an eye on it. "I think a sixteen year old telepath with martial arts training is a bit better at telling arseholes to sod off than sheltered thirteen year old girls," she said simply. There were few things she feared, these days, but back then...she'd been as susceptible as any child.
Cal winced at the kind of things he was now imagining. "Didn't you have anyone with you to help?" If not one of her parents, a guardian of some sort? Fuck, no thirteen-year-old should ever be put in the position of having to tell assholes to 'sod off'.
"I had an agent," Betsy said, nodding slowly. She flipped their sandwiches to toast the other side, and then hopped up gracefully to sit on the counter. She rested her chin on a well-manicured hand, and then conceded, "though her job was to make sure I remained employed and employable, primarily, rather than to baby-sit me otherwise."
"Doesn't sound like enough," Cal sympathized, letting her flip the slices of bread before adding the cheese on the already toasted side.
She shrugged and watched him work. "It was what it was. I was luckier than most. And I got to do and see some amazing things."
"So you wouldn't take it back?" Cal asked, glancing at her before focusing back on the cheese.
Betsy shook her head 'no.' "I wouldn't. Despite..." Getting kidnapped? Nearly dying? Ending her entire life as she'd known it? "Well, despite everything."
Cal glanced at her, this time to check whether she looked as grave as she sounded. He had only really been asking about the modeling, but that sounded like... more. It was impressive, that she'd feel that way. He certainly wouldn't. He'd take back a whole bunch of shit, if it meant the Right never got his hands on him. "That's... something," he settled on, and gave her a small smile, before picking up the spatula to finally make sandwiches out of the bread and cheese.
"So," she said, a hint of tease to her voice, "I have to ask. How do you usually eat your grilled cheese? I find you can learn a lot about a person by discovering their grilled cheese habits."
As segues went, it wasn't her smoothest, but she suspected they both could use the levity and change of pace.
"A lot about them, and a lot about their mood," Cal agreed, happy to go with the change of topic. "Right now, I think, slice them in half, dip them in ketchup. You?"
Betsy nodded with feigned seriousness. "Interesting, very interesting. I'm a quarters and tomato soup girl myself, though given that I often do not bother to make the soup, I've used ketchup as well."
"Exactly," Cal nodded. "Ketchup is the easier option."
"The finish is a bit less smooth," she joked, employing her poshest Lady Braddock voice, "but there is something to be said for convenience."
Cal smirked at her. "Well, I'm an uncouth American, anyway," he pointed out, and grabbed the ketchup bottle out of the fridge.
She smirked right back at him, "Ah, but at least you're aware of it, which is a lovely change of pace." Betsy winked, to ensure the joke wasn't taken to heart.
"You know," Cal said conversationally, as he grabbed a bowl to squeeze out some ketchup into, "you're fixing grilled cheese sandwiches with me. I think that makes you an uncouth Brit. Or it'd all be crumpets and cucumber sandwiches, right?"
"Mmm," Betsy hummed. "Good point. Fortunately, I suppose, I've been bucking tradition for some time. I think it's the only reason Wisdom hasn't killed me."
"The guy you came in with?" Cal checked.
She nodded. "Surly, rumpled, sarcastic...but a good guy to have at your back. That's him."
Cal smiled at her conclusion, and nodded. "Good." Not the surly, etc, bit, but Betsy could use someone who had her back, from what she'd told Cal of her life so far.
He transferred the bowl to the island, then grabbed a plate to slide the grilled sandwiches into. "Time to be uncouth."
She grinned and slid gracefully off the counter. "Let's."
