2829/Stars and Shades

Stars and Shades
Date of Scene:	08 August 2020
Location:	Brooklyn
Synopsis:	A superheroics history student and a man who's lived it meet in a diner at midnight.
Cast of Characters:	Courtney Whitmore, Richard Swift

---

Courtney Whitmore has posed:
    The teenager stifles a yawn before she stares down into her empty coffee cup. She's short enough that her feet don't hit the tile beneath her stool, her elbows resting on the diner counter in front of her. She tucks a strand of curly hair behind her ear before she smiles tiredly at the waitress.

"Can I get a refill, please?"

    Her accent is far from local. It's Californian, but toned down with some Midwestern at the edge of her words. She's dressed in jeans, a 'vintage' Nirvana shirt, and a NYU letterman's jacket tied around her waist.

    A backpack sits beside her stool on the floor, and she has an average laptop open in front of her, where she appears to be writing a paper or something. It's a bit after midnight, and the 24-hour diner is almost completely empty.

Richard Swift has posed:
It doesn't ever really get truly dark in Brooklyn. There's too much light pollution from the cars, the buildings, the street lights, and the advertisements. It's always there, everywhere, and it never lets the ambient light levels on the streets gets lower than 'mildly difficult to see in.' It certainly doesn't get pitch black to the point where you can't even see the street outside your window, and yet...

The city outside the diner seems to disappear in a rush of darkness. One moment everything appears normal, and the next the lonely little building is isolated and cut off from the outside world. The bell at the front door jingles, and like a shattering spell the darkness vanishes all at once and the city returns, bright as its ever been just after midnight.

Standing in the doorway, brushing dust off a suit that looks like it was very expensive when it was tailored in the 1960s, and gripping a cane in his free hand, is a particularly long and thin individual. He smiles at the slightly flustered hostess who shows him to a seat at the booth directly behind Courtney, and he elects to settle with his back turned to the NYU student as he offers in a distinctly British voice: "Tea if you have it, love."

Courtney Whitmore has posed:
Courtney is too focused on her laptop and refilled coffee to actually see the darkness swarm outside, but she feels the hackles on the back of her neck rise. She shivers and glances back as the bell jingles and the man enters.

She blinks before she offers a curious, if friendly smile. She then turns back to her laptop and sighs softly, brushing her fingers back through her hair.

Richard Swift has posed:
For a good minute or so, it seems as if the newcomer is going to be well content to simply sit in his booth and drink his tea in peace despite his curiously anachronistic appearance. The only sound from his side of the booth's back is the eventual sound of a cup being placed in front of him, a murmured thanks, and the sound of sugar and milk being stirred into what is presumably the tea he ordered. A sip, the light clink of cup meeting saucer again, and then:

"Terrible time, absolutely terrible. One of the few times I've felt they managed to accurately capture the entire situation with the name. Often times they completely bungle the whole thing and it comes out sounding worse than it was. Or better. I was there, though. There truly was dust everywhere. Made it frightfully difficult to keep a suit clean."

Sip. Clink of tea cup.

"Not that it bothered me much, of course. I had no horse in the race, you see."

Courtney Whitmore has posed:
"You were there?," the girl asks, her tone doubtful. She glances back with a lopsided grin. Courtney then glances back to her laptop and picks up her coffee for a long sip.

"Drought causing farmlands to dry up and blow away combined with poverty and...well...everything else. Didn't even really have the original Mystery Men running around yet, so there weren't any superheros to help folks. Would have sucked..."5r

Richard Swift has posed:
"For a bit, yes," the English gentleman responds, either ignoring or failing to notice the doubt in the girl's tone. "There really wasn't much to see or steal, though. No reason to stay for very long, unless I was in a very great need to acquire a very great amount of dead plants."

Sip.

"I wasn't." He turns slightly in his booth, fixing the girl with his dark gaze and a simple smile. "Superheroes can't solve everything, dear. In fact, I dare say they can hardly solve anything at all. Oh sure, they'll stop an intergalactic threat or two every once in a while, but the real problems? The Dust Bowls of the world? The Great Depressions?" He shrugs easily, a silent laugh playing just behind his eyes, "What can they really do?"

Courtney Whitmore has posed:
    "The Future Foundation alone...run -by- superheroes...has made huge steps towards bettering and extending life around the world. And the Justice Society did a lot of good back then. Sure, they couldn't punch poverty, but the psychopaths trying to take over the world? Or Nazis back then? Besides, the more superpowered or skilled people involved, the less normal people have to be hurt. Also, like Superman, they can show us how to be a good person."

She sips her coffee again, glancing back at him, briefly. "My degree is in U.S. History with a focus on superpowered events and individuals."

Richard Swift has posed:
The man holds up both his hands in surrender, his smile growing faintly bemused as she informs him of her degree, "An expert on superpowered events and individuals through the ages, huh? I suppose I have no chance of winning this argument, then. No formal education on the matter to speak of, just an old man's observations." He must be speaking of someone else's observations, because he doesn't look a day over thirty. Still, he grows a touch more interested after he takes a moment to consider her reply, but chooses to let a bit of silence hang between them first.

Minutes, in fact, where his only contribution to the noise in the unpopulated diner is to sip at his tea and eventually order ask for a refill.

Only when the waitress leaves to fetch it for him, does he take the time to turn around again and ask: "Out of curiosity, while doing all this studying for your degree, have you ever heard of an individual named Shade?"

Courtney Whitmore has posed:
    "He fought the Justice Society back in the day before they disbanded, right? Not a lot of info about him, but he was never an archnemesis or anything, anyways. So...a little? And I'm no expert. I'm a freshman. But...informed."

She shrugs a bit at that and saves her paper on the laptop before she closes the lid.

Richard Swift has posed:
Something about her response makes the Englishman's smile twitch slightly, as if he had to momentarily fight to keep it from dropping into a frown. "Is that right? I think I heard someone mention him the other day, but never got around to looking him up," he claims without a hint of anything but satisfied curiosity in his tone while he turns back to accept his fresh cup of tea from the waitress. Sugar. Milk. Gentle clink of spoon. He's back, tea in hand and gaze settled on the freshman college student. "So then you must be interested in the older heroes if you're studying History in relation to them, right?" It really is an educated guess, so the question at the end was a true inquiry and not a rhetoric device. Still, he presses on despite her answer: "Do you have a favorite?"

Courtney Whitmore has posed:
"I always thought Hourman was cool. Starman. Star Spangled Kid and Stripesy." She shrugs again, sipping her coffee again. "The JSA had a lot of interesting people and interesting foes before the government made them disband under all that communist suspicion garbage. They should reform. New heroes, of course, but still."

The teen has the tone of someone who has though about this a lot in the past.

Richard Swift has posed:
That draws a soft chuckle from the man as he sips at his tea, nodding along lightly in agreement with the heroes she lists. When she mentions the cause of their disbanding, his good humor fades for the first time as he scowls and waves his free hand through the air in dismissal, as if that might make the charges disappear. "It was all nonsense," he claims with the absolute certainty of someone who isn't going off assumptions and second-hand evidence, "Trumped up paranoia and ulterior motives. They deserved better than they got." The man pauses to take a breath and let it out with a sigh, "Still it certainly would be nice if they made a comeback..."

He glances to the girl with a raised eyebrow and a faint smile on his lips, "Perhaps all they need is a push. A reason. Some motivation and familiarity, eh?"

Courtney Whitmore has posed:
"Oh, it was. Just like it was for all of the blacklisting in Hollywood at the time. It was a bad time, and it sucks that good people got dragged down by those zealots."

She tucks her laptop into her backpack as she moves to stand, the short girl hopping down to her feet. She fishes out her wallet and pulls out the few bucks for her coffee, and a tip.

Courtney glances over and raises a hand before stifling another yawn. "Paper's done, though. Time to head home. Take care."

If he doesn't stop her, the girl makes her way out into the Brooklyn night.

Richard Swift has posed:
The man watches as she begins packing up her belongings, his smile faint as he turns back to face the booth he's actually sitting in. "Be safe, love," he offers to the girl as she pays her tip and makes her departure. For a moment the besuited gentleman simply sits and considers his tea in silence, but eventually he laughs to himself and takes a sip.

The next time the waitress comes to their lone little booths, both are empty, only the money for their respective bills and tips left behind. She pauses at the sight, tilting her head in faint confusion. After all... She could have sworn she only heard the door open once.