16045/Sorry about your book, Nettie!

Sorry about your book, Nettie!
Date of Scene:	09 October 2023
Location:	Fourth Floor: Lounge and Sitting Room
Synopsis:	After talking to Gabby, Joshua comes across his adopted mother who attempts to soothe him while making plans to deal with the threat to Joshua once and for all.
Cast of Characters:	Joshua Foley, Nettie Crowe
Tinyplot:	Reavers

---

Joshua Foley has posed:
Gabby had set everything up for a movie, and it was going to be a nice date. Then Joshua just had to show up covered in (his own) blood. After deciding to get cleaned, Josh went to go get his messenger bag, realizing he's going to have to replace it as well. "I really hope this wasn't an expensive book." he murmurs.

And with that, he's moving to step out into the hallway to head down to the crash space, the showers, and if he was being honest -- he'd probably have ended up standing up Gabby and crashing into bed, because he was far more tired than he was letting on.

Nettie Crowe has posed:
    "Hope what wasn't an expensive book?" comes a voice in curiosity, accompanied by the smell of juniper berries and rose hips and bergamont as Nettie comes around a corner, with a laundry basket on her hips.

    And then she pauses. She tilts her head a moment.

    "Joshua -- what happened?"

Joshua Foley has posed:
"Oh." Crap. Busted. Well, Joshua /was/ looking for her. He unshoulders his messenger bag and offers it to Nettie. It's been shot clean through. Probably one of the bullets that hit him.

"The Reavers made another attempt on me." he explains, fidgetting. "...Spider-Man, and a couple of his friends and one of my friends helped to rescue me. They don't care if I'm alive or not anymore." he explains.

And then he glances back to the common area where Gabby was. "...talked to Gabs. We gotta stop them, mom. I can't live like this anymore. I want to hurt them." His hands are black, a sure sign that he wasn't thinking of healing someone recently.

Nettie Crowe has posed:
    Nettie drops her laundry basket. The basket makes an AWRK sound, and Corvax sticks his face out.

    She takes the bag, and she looks at the hole shot through it. Bullet wouldn't have exited, it would have stayed inside his thigh where it went down ward towards his arteries.

    And Nettie frowns.

    Reavers." she states softly, and then she takes the bag, crossing her arms over it a moment. So very close to the thinnest nights of the veil. And Nettie was already trying to keep things together.

    "Joshua... do you happen to know where this group is based out of?" she questions gently, looking to Joshua's blackened hands as she exhales in a very measured manner. Her own hands shake.

Joshua Foley has posed:
"I knew where they /were/. The lab they were once in that was destroyed. Where I was killed." Joshua explains, and like with Gabby, he feels the need to lift his shirt. No more bullet hole! And the slug got expelled from his body.

"I know they have a larger base, but I do not know where it is." he explains. "Bunny shut down one of the Reavers. Spider-Man another. There was a third, that Spider-Man's friend captured. I was hoping to find out from him somehow where there base is, but the police arrived before I could question him." That's why his forearms and hands are black.

"Gabby says it's a JLD issue now. And she wants to help me take care of it. Once and for all." He's tired, so very tired, and it shows in his face, and the fire barely hidden behind blue eyes.

Nettie Crowe has posed:
    "Miss Kinney's correct. They specifically attacked a member of our League -- let alone my son." she states, and she sits down in the hallway, as if it were compleately typical to do so.

    "Do you happen to know which precinct?" Nettie inquires, tilting her head back as she begins to formulate a plan. Not a very kind plan either.

    "But yes. I reckon now it is League business provided the regular Justice League doesn't find out too many details."

Joshua Foley has posed:
As Nettie sits, Joshua should be concerned. And normally he would be. But one can tell. This has taken the life right out of him. Even when he kissed Gabby on the cheek, it was almost in resignation. He's numb to it now, and just wants to find his closure. No matter what that means.

"The lab was in Ryker Heights." Joshua finally manages to remember, though even that, there's a small shiver through his frame as he remembers his last moments of life as the flames and concussion wave engulfed him. He tries not to wake up everyone at night with his screams and need to walk the halls on alert that there is a Reaver around every corner until he's exhausted again.

"Tonight, though? The Bushwick district." he explains. "That's who showed up on the scene."

Nettie Crowe has posed:
Nettie Crowe says, "I'll stop in and see about speaking to the lads. I'm sure I can convince them to give me some information." Nettie states thoughtfully, with utter calm.

    She's pissed.

    SHe's still holding his bag.

    "Iknow if you were any other lad, near abouts, I'd be having a conversation with the police, likely, and not with you. Small favors, I wager." she exhales.

    "If I find out where to hit -- do you want to come with us?""

Joshua Foley has posed:
Lifting his eyes as he looks to Nettie, he considers his options. He could hide here. In the shop. He'd be safe. He wouldn't come to harm. He wouldn't have to die again.

What a coward he is. He realizes. This is why. This is the whole reason why.

Why he's weak. Why he's not good enough.

Tears form at the bottom of his eyes. He's scared. He doesn't want to be scared anymore. The emotional scar tissue is already too much.

"Yes." he finally manages to say. "You. Gabby. Everyone else. You have such faith in me. I couldn't look any of you in the eye if I sent you off and cowered here. I need to prove it. To myself. That I'm good enough. For you. For Gabby."

"And if I can't, then I don't deserve what I've been given in this second chance." He reaches up to scrub at his face, chasing off what bits of dried blood were on his cheek. "You'll need a healer in case someone gets hurt."

"And I'm the best one at it."

Nettie Crowe has posed:
    NEttie pauses in her thoughts, and she looks up to Joshua.

    And she reaches up with one of her gloved hands, and she, very slowly, hesitantly, reaches to take his hand, and pull on him, down to the floor to join her where she was sitting.

    "There is no shame in staying behind, Joshua." she states softly, thoughtfully. You're still healing. You've just begun a journey into a new life that you've been gifted, and that you've chosen this path. If you were not one hundred percent ready to face them by the time we have the information we need, I would expect you to sit it out because there is no shame in acknowleging that you aren't emotionally ready for something. There is no shame in wanting to be safe." she reflects a moment.

    "I want you to know I do not expect you to work in the field, that is a choice you *can* make, and I will abide by it, but it is not a requirement. I want you to have every opportunity... but I also want you to be able to sleep through the night. This isn't a life -- or a job -- I would choose for anyone. There's a lot of faux glory, but no one talks about what it's like to take a life, and having to deal with it in the years after you did. It's why dehumanization was so important for the Reavers, I wager. It's easier to kill an enemy who is Other than it is to kill a person. An' I've killed many people over my lifetime. I reckon a fair shake more than Gabby even realizes beyond my thirty-eight skulls." Nettie states thoughtfully.

    "I do not want it to be easy."

Joshua Foley has posed:
Joshua doesn't resist when he is pulled down onto the floor to sit with his adopted mother. He immediately sits crossed-legged and listens to her, his head bowed as he considers all the words that she explains.

"I could have just let you take me in and lived here as your adopted son. I am the one that made the decision to join the group. I'm the one that let myself go on missions so that I could grow more comfortable."

"I've had my humanity stripped from me." he explains. "The day I died. In the lab. When I learned the truth about the Reavers, that they were torturing and harvesting mutants, and that I had been part of it. When the Rhinocerus and Warthog mutants attacked with their mistress, who wounded me and left me for dead there. When I was abanonded by someone that I admit, I am the one that hurt her. And I am still trying to make it right with her."

"I was alone for three minutes. Three minutes to realize I had made every choice wrong. That I had done nothing but cause pain. That I betrayed everyone and everything. Three minutes to try to make sense of it all. Instead, I pounded on the glass, I plead for them to save me. I screamed and begged for forgiveness. That I would be saved."

"I still shudder when I smell fire." he tells Nettie quietly.

"I know what this means. I know it will be messy. I know this. But this is my fight. I brought this to your doorstep and I didn't tell you everything because I was scared you would turn me out. Gabby and her friends knew and she's helped me so much."

"But it's time. I need to stand on my feet. I need to help. I need absolution." Then he grinds his teeth slightly.

"I need revenge."

Nettie Crowe has posed:
    "Absolution and Revenge are two distinct things, Joshua." Nettie states gently. "Absolution is forgiveness. That is something you must give yourself. No one else is going to do it for you. Revenge, on the other hand..." Nettie frowns.

    "Ill let you go on this one, Joshua, once we find it." Nettie remarks quietly, "But I do not want you on point for the combat. Aye, probably should join forces with some other mutant-friendly groups, reckon more than one has a bone to pick with them, but more than anything else... I want you to have the chance to see it through. And be done." she chews on her lip for a moment.

    "You may never lose the sense of fear when you smell fire. Back in my day we called it Shell Shock. Now? Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I've got it too. There's times I freeze when certain smells or sounds, the flash of glass the right way makes me stop." she leans her head back.

    "Do you reckon speaking to a professional may help?"

Joshua Foley has posed:
Joshua looks thoughtful for a moment. He folds his hands in front of him. "I realize that I need to forgive myself. But for that happen, I need to earn everyone else's forgiveness." he admits quietly, but when she allows him on the mission, he nods his head.

"Fine. I'll be support. It's what I'm best at." Whether or not he sticks with that? Well, that depends on how things pan out. But he is agreeing to the terms.

Her last question causes him to draw a breath. "I've visited the school a couple of times, trying to mend fences. It was suggested I speak with Doctor Grey about what happened, but I'm kind of... on the fence about it still." He's being stubborn, in other words.

Nettie Crowe has posed:
    "Fuck everyone else, Josh. You," she pokes his shoulder gently, "cannot control what others think of you, or if they will accept an apology. You apologize. You see how they take it. You move on. There may be nothing you can do to make them forgive you. The only one, at the end of the day, you have to face when you look in the mirror... is you. An' there may be a day when you look in the mirror and realize it doesn't *hurt* anymore. And there may never be a day that happens. You do not know the future, m'boy." she states, and she holds his bullet-hole bag in her arm.

    "An' I didn't say you wouldn't see some combat. I just don't want you on the front line for this one. I'd rather not give them what they want." Nettie states. "That is, quite literally, an 'over my dead bodies' situation."

Joshua Foley has posed:
"Please tell me that was like... one of Lydia's lesbian vampire novels." Joshua says as he looks at the bag. "And not like an expensive book." Because he is genuinely worried about that!

"I know, and you have years of experience on me. And everyone else has the pratical experience. I'm lagging behind and trying my best to catch up." he admits. "But... you're right. And I know. And I appreciate it."

"And even if I didn't see combat, I know I will see things that may not sit well. But I want the closure. I can heal so many wounds. I can treat so many things."

"But healing myself and healing a broken heart? There's no cure I can ever provide for that. And for that, I need to just push through the experience and move on."

Nettie Crowe has posed:
    "Joshua, it could be an autographed copy of the Bible and more important to me is that you survived and came back to me." Nettie states softly. "Books and bags can be repaired, aye, and people only to the barest extent. Your heart, your mind? Those take far more time than a couple of pages in the book or a couple scraps of canvas." Nettie states. And then she releases the book bag, setting it in her lap,

    And she reaches up and tries to catch Josh's cheeks between her gloved palms.

    "More important to me is you made it home, am I understood?"

Joshua Foley has posed:
The delivery of the book was his job! That's why Joshua is fretting over it so much. And he was just about to protest all that when Nettie grabs his cheeks and squeezes him, making him look so much like a golden stress ball.

And all he can really say is. "Yes'am, I understand."

It's a little muffled with his cheeks puffed and all.

Nettie Crowe has posed:
    "Good. Because I'd hate to have to explain how returning my library book was less important than you coming home after being injured." she states, and she folds the bag over the book so that Josh can't see what it actually was, and she tucks the whole thing into her laundry basket.

    And at some point released his cheeks.

    "Now. You go clean up. I've got a police department to invade." she gives a short groan as she gets to her feet.

    "... do you want Corvax to follow you about on deliveries for a time?"

Joshua Foley has posed:
Getting to his feet, Joshua nods. "It might be a good idea. I was going to ask a couple of people, but I don't want to impose." he admits. "Just in case someone takes another potshot at me." He didn't want to suggest it to Gabby, hey wanna be my bodyguard on deliveries really sounded lame.

"Let me know what you find out. I'll ask... someone about things to protect myself in the field." A pause. "And I promise I won't tear off my shirt to draw the attention of the big bad." And with that, he starts to head off towards the showers. And bed.

Nettie Crowe has posed:
    Nettie tarries another minute. Corvax pops his head out.

    "LIbrary book?"

    "Lad feels bad enough, Corvax. I'm not going to tell him he was delivering something I wrote in the 1800's to a friend." she states softly, and hups upward.

    "Now, come along. The hour grows late, and I'm going to have to break my way into some holding cells to speak with a couple young men."

    "... and you're just going to *talk*, right?"

    "... well. No sense in making a promise I don't intend to keep, old friend." Nettie smiles toothily, and with her laundry on her hip, makes her way back to her apartment.