[Megan Daniels]

Menagerie had been a Hero for almost six months now and had been doing a reasonably good job of it, despite what she'd feared quite a few people seemed to like her, she was popular enough as a Hero but this was San Francisco after all so she didn't even crack the top five of local Heroes, not that it mattered all that much to her. Despite the best efforts of the Program, today had been a day when they got in too late to stop a criminal from escaping, three of them actually, and all that could be done was to look for survivors. Reports were that the three had been incredibly well-organized, but no known affiliations, no non-powered accomplices, and no clue what they were there for. Megan had been brought in to help rescue operations because one of them could create toxic and caustic gas that burned right through gas masks and the building they had attacked was still full of it, and her skeletons could go in with no risk. However, once she got there she had immediately been punched into a wall by one of the trio and they had fled. Megan wasn’t hurt badly enough that she couldn’t help get the survivors out, and now she had returned to the offices.

Megan sat down holding a bag of ice to the back of her head, slumping in more emotional than physical exhaustion. She’d done her best, she knew that, but she’d been blindsighted and not only had the perpetrators escaped, neither she nor the program knew anything more than one of their powers, and that another was a brick of some description. She still wore the thin almost glittery looking black clothing that she used under her costume, it wasn’t identifiable since her armor covered it, and it wasn’t like just anybody had access to this… well she assumed it was a break room, she didn’t actually know, what had mattered was that it had a nice chair. The door creaked and opened and Megan's eyes flashed to it. 

Alice Morrow

[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Megan Daniels

The opener of the door possessed hair of an equally bright shade as Megan's albeit a contrasting one. Paladin's shock of blue hair was instantly recognisable, and it was shortly after followed by her equally recognisable smile. Between that hair and smile was a pair of tired looking eyes however. They flicker over Megan concernedly, taking in the fact that she was still in part of her costume, and the bag of ice pressed against the back of her head. "Hey... I heard you had a bad day." There was no suggestion that the bad day might have been Megan's fault, somehow Alice just seemed to earnestly care about her fellow Hero. An uncharitable individual might claim this was because Menagerie couldn't even touch Paladin's popularity as a Hero. Such a claim would be unfair, for all her faults, Paladin really does care, perhaps to a fault, and the expression on her face shows that she recognises the feelings that Megan is currently wrestling with. Crossing the room with easy, long-legged strides, Alice sits down on one of the battered leather couches. She's dressed in casual clothes, t-shirt, jeans. Everyone in the Program Offices is cleared, but there's also a back way out of the building in case Heroes want to change here rather than returning home in uniform. She pulls her legs up and sits cross legged on the couch, her battered converse and branded t-shirt highlighting her young age. "I just finished my patrol, wanna talk about it?"

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[Megan Daniels]

Megan adopted her usual impish grin on seeing who had come in. It had been a while since they last worked together but she'd gotten used to seeing each and every one of the city's Heroes around the building in and out of costume if you included people she didn't officially know but could basically guess were Heroes considering their levels of access to the building and lack of any apparent other job, besides there was no mistaking that hair and grin. She hadn't had as much chance as she would have liked to interact with her co-workers, but most seemed rather decent people. Megan's smile faltered just a little bit "Yeah, not too surprised you heard It was... rather crazy"

She stretched up into a less slumped sitting position, blowing a strand of hair from her face. It was good to have somebody else around after all the stress, Megan is a very social person and not having much personal interaction with people since moving had been affecting her more that she'd like to admit. It might have been her own fault for having such a strenuous job, but she really did like doing it. It had certainly changed her, and not just physically because she was starting to develop a bit of proper muscle in her previously twiggy legs from all the patrolling, but because she really felt she was doing some good in the world, giving back after the miracle she had received in her power.

Paladin was one of the most popular people in the nation, perhaps on the planet, and Megan had seen her press hundreds of pounds of metal into the ground hard enough to crack concrete with a light one-handed push, but being around the girl it that was only barely in your mind, she was just so eminently personable.

"Definitely. I mean everyone has bad days right? Just usually they don't involve getting punched hard enough to leave a mark in a plaster wall that's several feet behind you" she chuckled.

[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Megan Daniels

"Yeah... Not usually. I mean..." Paladin grins, a wide infectious smile, "I pretty much beg for them to try punching me. Every Brick in the nation seems to want to try their hand against the famous Paladin." She pulls a face and pretends to flex on the couch, grunting inanely. Then she grows more serious. "It sucks though... When you're not enough..." There's a faraway look in her eyes as she speaks, clearly lost in a memory. "Maybe if you'd been just a bit quicker... Just a bit smarter..." There is a clear change in her as she snaps herself out of the reverie. "But it's stupid. There's no meta that can rewind time, you can't go back and undo it, so there's no point blaming yourself for it." There is more weight behind her words than her normal carefree tone, and her eyes are fixed on Megan's for a moment before she pulls them away. There is pain there, and heartache, and loss. "If that's what you do then pretty soon you'll find yourself unable to even get out of bed. So you've got to make sure you enjoy what you've got." She jumps up, propelling herself from the couch in one smooth motion that defies both physics and human anatomy. Reaching out, she grabs one of Megan's hand. "Come on, lets go remind ourselves why we do what we do."

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[Megan Daniels]

Megan chuckled at the display her fellow hero made, putting down what by now was quickly becoming a bag of slightly chilly water. "Sadly some of us still follow 'the laws of physics' instead of 'the vague suggestions of physics' so I think I'm going to leave physically competing with Brick strength to you" she said, grin returning easily to her face.

She nodded at the girl's reminiscing, it was the eternal problem of heroes that was one of many things all these writers had gotten correct even when superhuman abilities were the domain of fiction. "Yeah, it can really wear on you even if it isn't all that rational. Nobody can win every fight, there's lot's of us for a reason after all" she smiled, it really helped to have other Heroes to talk to for her, she'd felt incredibly alone in her abilities for such a long time. Even though she had known she wasn't the only metahuman out there, actually being able to talk about it and about her crazy new manner of employment was something she couldn't overstate the value of having. "I don't think I should blame myself... I just still do" she sighed with a smile saying something along the lines of 'Aren't brains absurd sometimes?' and shrugged.

All of a sudden in her usually Paladin-y way of movements that seemed like they would be smugly grinning at the entirety of classical physics if such a thing were possible, Megan found her hand being held by a girl who had moments previously been in an entirely different part of the room. Megan too got up, though with more adherence to the standard functioning of the universe, only just noticing the poster of the city's Heroes hung above the chair she'd been in, it was probably meant as a joke since whoever it was had sharpied over the list of names at the bottom with a written in comment of 'You should know perfectly well'. She quirked her grin at the poster a moment before saying "Of course, lead the way!" with excitement.

[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Megan Daniels

"Yeah... And it'll never go away..." Alice's usually light-hearted manner is interrupted for that moment of seriousness. Then it returns full force "But that's why you've got to make everything else worth it. So that's what we're gonna go and do." Pulling on Megan's hand, she leads her to the door, yanking it open and heading down the corridor. Said corridor is empty, and contains no cameras, just like the Hero break room contains no cameras. The Program takes the identities of it's best and brightest very seriously indeed. Alice starts towing Megan down the corridor, passing various notice boards tacked onto the faintly off-white walls. She's more than halfway down it when she turns right and opens the door to a stairwell. It's one of those that leads to the parking garage beneath the building, but only Heroes and the higher ups know that it also branches off to several other parking lots around the area, allowing the Heroes to come and go unnoticed. Alice is about to leap down the stairs when she stops, turning... She gives Megan a strange look, then races a finger and indicates her current outfit. "Whoops, you should probably change out of that first."

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[Megan Daniels]

Megan delightedly smiled as Alice pulled her along, failing to even notice her clothing until it was pointed out "Ah, forgot I still had this on" she said turning around on one heel and rushing back down the hallway into her changing room. It wasn't that it was recognizable, not an inch of the clothing was visible in costume since her armor had a full bodysuit under the plating, but mostly that it was both not very insulating and gave the impression of tight pajamas covered in black glitter, not only not her look but not really anybody's look. The idea is to not attract much attention after all, as far as the world was concerned right now she and Alice were ordinary young women having an ordinary day together.

Putting the underlayer away with the rest of her costume Megan grabbed her bag. It had been a Christmas present from Emily, a friend of hers from film school. Emily both was good with arts and crafts and a huge Hero fangirl, so she had sent her old friend now moved to San Francisco a present more appropriate than she could have realized- a multicolored backpack with stripes in the colors of the costumes of the cities Heroes, descending from the earliest to most recently recruited. It was very typical of Emily but she'd unknowingly this time given something that felt deeply meaningful to Megan when she looked at it; she could see herself as a part of something, continuing a legacy and leaving one of her own. She ran her hand down the bag, dozens of sets of colors from white and purple right near the top down through greens, yellows, blues, reflective silver, black and pale green, and at the very bottom off-white and light brown.

Coming back out in a pair of very dark jeans,  a sky blue shirt, and a light jacket she hadn't bothered to button, Megan came down the stairs with a grin, intentionally caricaturing her comment the first time she'd met Alice. "Alright, Megan is all de-suited and ready to go" she said with a wink.

[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Megan Daniels

Alice gives the bag a double take. There's definitely something about it which seems familiar, but she can't quite work out what it was. She files it away to ask about later, leaving it at "That's a really cute bag!" Once more grabbing Megan's hand, she pulls her into the stair well. Leaning over the side, she checks to see that there is no-one below. The stairwell is empty, as it usually is. The office staff of the Program rarely bother using the secret exits, indeed, most of them do not even know it exists. Even San Francisco, with it's larger than normal Hero population has only a handful of metahumans protecting it. Anything more than half a dozen Heroes is considered a potent force, even for a city as densely populated as San Francisco. The fact that the San Francisco Heroes include Paladin goes a long way to recruiting new members of the Program, and one of San Francisco's new exports has become Heroes. "Let's go." Alice throws her arm around Megan. "Don't worry, I've got you." Then she heaves them both over the banister. Fourteen floors pass in no time, and Alice lands with Megan without even flexing her legs. She leaves just a little kinetic energy in the fall so as not to discomfort Megan too much. Alice enjoys a more than casual relationship with gravity, but she's had two years to get used to it, ignoring physics is much harder for most people, even those who can raise the dead. "Once I got my powers I got really impatient with stairs and elevators. It's really a miracle I haven't put on about a hundred lbs." She leads Megan down one of the corridors. "So are you feeling food, or booze, or both?"

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[Megan Daniels]

Megan's grin widened at the compliment "Thanks! A friend from before I moved sent it to me last Christmas and I really like it". Her eyes widened in surprise as Alice grabbed her hand, realizing what was coming only about  second before it happened. At least this time it was a much shorter fall and she knew for a fact the landing wouldn't hurt her instead of desperately hoping it wouldn't, so there's some improvement at least she thought. That still didn't make it any less weird, but as the girl who brought up skeletons she had no real ground to argue from, not that she would have wanted to; as strange as both of their abilities were they were pretty damn awesome to have.

Once landing with the expected tiny jolt instead of the bone-cracking force that would normally come from such a fall, Megan looked up the corridors eagerly. There wasn't really much to look at of course, but she hadn't ever used any of the paths out except one, despite the relative magnitude of the secret exits (something she was still months later internally squealing with glee, how cool  is it that they had secret exits?). Despite having visited the building near daily for the last half year she still hadn't seen all it had to offer, and there was  still something like seven more Heroes she hadn't said anything more than passing greetings to, a fact that might have seemed less an indicator of how busy she'd been if not for the fact that that was the majority of them.

Chuckling at Alice's comments about her failure to use normal methods of vertical transportation she said "Hey, I'm the one who's method of combat involves zero physical activity. Reminds me, I need to schedule some more training on close-quarters stuff, the ideal is to not be in a position where I need it but we both know ideal conditions are just that" she said, going in her usual wild meandering of vocalizing her thoughts that happened when she didn't actually need to do anything urgently. At the question she gave Alice an over-the-top offended look, gesturing theatrically as if she had been told something a lot less innocuous. "I'm twenty, I don't drink." then with a wink she said "After all that Heroing I'm pretty hungry, I'll defer to the local knowledge on what good stuff there is around here" she said gesturing back at Alice.

[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Megan Daniels

"Good. Because neither do I." Alice winks and taps her nose. It's one of the few points where her normally strait-laced attitude flexes. Usually because she can go and have fun with people on a night out. Stephen, her old friend from school, introduced her to it while he was at College, she'd sort of gotten the taste for it. Stephen had attributed it to her work hard, play harder lifestyle, but Alice just thinks it's fun. She pauses in the centre of a cross roads, long corridors leading off to either side, and a shorter one terminating in a door directly ahead. "If you have a seriously Hero sized appetite there's only one place to go." Alice jerks her thumb to the right, then, without waiting for a response, starts down that corridor, towing Megan behind her. It's a long corridor, easily covering several blocks. The plain concrete walls look relatively fresh, and the lights above are a harsh, unblinking white. After a little over five minutes of walking, they turn a corner to be confronted by a door. There's a sign on this side of the door. Originally it had read the address of the underground parking lot they are about to emerge into, but a sharpie has been used to cross that out. Underneath has simply been scrawled the word Lunch. It is in the same hand as the graffiti in the Hero break room. The parking garage in question is nearly full, mostly expensive cars crowding the low-ceilinged concrete and asphalt space. There is nobody in it. The structure echoes strangely as Alice walks through it, but it doesn't take long for the two to emerge into the bright sunlight of a late San Francisco afternoon, albeit one in which the bitterly cold wind makes even Alice wrap her jacket more tightly about herself for warmth. "Come on." She doesn't take Megan's hand this time, instead keeping her hands buried in warm pockets as she trots across the street with a crowd of commuters. Her intended destination is just around the corner, a narrow, but long restaurant with a large sign outside it that proudly declares it's owner to be Bob, and the fact that he is hungry. "OK," Alice keeps her voice low as she pushes open the door. "Basically all of the Heroes in the city come here, I used to think Bob was a Hero, but the guy basically lives here, so I guess not." The inside of the restaurant is giving it's best impression of a log cabin, with wood panelled walls and a roaring fire halfway along one wall. The clientele, for there are many, are tucking into plates piled high with food, all of it calorific, and judging by the delighted reactions, all of it delicious. "Bob's a good guy, he gave me a few months work here a couple of years ago, back before the Program took off. I really needed the helping hand then, so I try to drop in when I can." Alice had been homeless for several months, unable to hold down a proper job for long due to her vigilantism and tossed out of her then apartment for missing rent. She'd slept in the warehouse Dom had leased for the six of them back when they'd all gotten powers, Bob had given her a job that had at least fed her for a few months, before she'd become the most famous person in America. Bob, surprisingly, is not a large man, he stands about an inch taller than Alice, with a wiry form that could have been mistaken for anorexic in a bad light. "Alice! My little bruiser!" The small man throws his arms around the girl, and the origin of the affectionate title becomes obvious. Bob might be taller than Alice, but it is clear even from her slender build that she outweighs him in sheer muscle alone. Alice pulls away and punches the man affectionately on the arm. "Gerroff. Bob, this is my friend Megan, she's new in town so..." Bob interrupts, "So she's never tried my food?" He draws a critical eye over Megan's form. "Yes, I can tell, far too skinny." It's a somewhat ironic comment coming from a man who looks like a toast-rack on legs. "Don't worry, I'll make sure we feed her up." The two are shown to a table and provided with menus. Bob lingers a moment longer, "Make sure you split the bill, or this one will eat you out of house and home." He prods Alice meaningfully, before heading back towards the front of the restaurant to greet a family that have just entered.

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[Megan Daniels]

Megan smirked at Alice's response. From what little she'd shared Alice had quite a rough life before the program, and she couldn't exactly condemn such a minor victimless crime as slightly underage drinking, it still was amusing to keep up the pretense of being a lot stricter than they were considering they both worked in the law enforcement sector. Her stomach seemed to become even more eager at the mention of food, she hadn't figured that she'd work up such an appetite from heroing at first, but as it turned out the most common exercise Heroes do is running, so very much running, walking, climbing or jumping over things... even though she tried to stay a bit back from the combat itself she still had to move around quickly as she could the old-fashioned way.

Following Alice down the corridor that she'd so easily managed to pick out from the gaggle of identical halls, Megan's eyes flashed over the door sign. It seemed the joker with a sharpie had struck here too. Perhaps one of the other Heroes? Both of their comments had seemed aimed at them and in spots only cleared Program staff could access. She guessed it didn't matter, she wasn't going to guess having only gotten to know three of the others closely.

The air was quite chilly, Megan's costume hadn't felt that hot in the summer but come winter it kept the cold out well enough that she hadn't realized quite how cold a day it was. She buttoned up her jacket with fingers stiff from the wind before following the local example (her usual approach to weather in a less familiar area) and pocketing her hands. Megan hurried after Alice, who even not actively using her powers seemed almost impossibly fast on her feet at times, into the warm wooden-decorated restaurant that was apparently a haven for Heroes, another thing she'd missed from her introduction as a Hero making her too busy to properly meet most of her colleagues. Her impish grin came back in full force as she was introduced to Bob, a man built less robustly than some of the skeletons she'd summoned before had been. "Hey, nice meeting you. Any friend of Alice's is a friend of mine" she said with her smiles turning from grin to more normal smile as she did, snorting a little at his assessment of her shape. She was indeed rather thin, having never completely outgrown the slightly stretched out look that most people develop in their teens, but even before her legs had filled out a bit from all the dashing about this man had her beat by miles. As they sat down she idly asked Alice "So what did you do when you worked here? I'm curious now" as she started looking over the menu.

[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Megan Daniels

Alice shrugged, "Not much that's particularly interesting. I was a line cook here for a couple of months before the Program launched. I didn't have a permanent address, so it was difficult to get a job in a lot of places, and most of the ones that didn't ask questions were not really places I wanted to work. He hired me, accepted my weird schedule, and let me take leftovers home from the kitchen. There aren't a lot of bosses around that are as understanding as Bob. I was pretty lucky to have found him really. Not sure I would have made it to launch day if I hadn't stumbled across him. I kind of try and repay him now by bringing every new Hero here at some point. So far they've all become repeat customers." There's a definite note of pride in her voice at that, even if she's no longer at the grill herself. The food is mostly a simple affair, chosen for it's filling qualities and spiced up with fine ingredients and creative twists. Alice reaches over to tap an item on the menu in front of Megan. "The ribs are really good, I can definitely recommend them." A server appears, young, probably around Megan and Alice's age, to take their orders. Alice just orders water, with ice, as well as a burger called 'The Monstrosity' in the menu with a double-helping of fries. Alice had learned a long time ago that Hero work led to a large appetite, and she probably packed away fifteen-hundred more calories than she used to. 'Hungry Bob's' was certainly an appropriate place for her to eat lunch regularly. It helped that she was significantly bigger now than she had been as a skinny teenager, regular training, workouts and the sort of fighting that Hero work entailed had bulked up her musculature considerably.

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[Megan Daniels]

Megan stretched forward, putting her chin in her hands as she listened, sliding the new information on Alice's past into the back of her mind but a bit too awkward-feeling about it to discuss it right now. "Interesting enough, I didn't know you cooked. I know a lot about what you're like so in that way I can be said to know you but we've never really had a chance to chat" she gestured to her face "like this before. Honestly I've not talked to people nearly enough since I moved and it's starting to get to me." She chuckled slightly, the topic was serious of course but she was able to find some self-deprecating humor in her own poor life-work balance related choices. She looked up and down the menu, it seemed to be pretty much basic grill food and she could see why lots of Heroes liked it, there was enough variety to account for many different tastes and the food was the exact sort of exceptionally caloric that was needed after a day of running and fighting, even if you didn't do it while wearing armor.

Now able to look more closely at her out of costume for the first time she could see that not only had she been correct that Alice couldn't be far from her own age, despite the recognizable hair and smile she just gave off a feeling of being so normal even in the most iconic costume in the program, no wonder she didn't attract too much attention dressed in normal clothes. Alice was of a similar sort of build to Megan, but to a closely looking eye she was evidently quite muscular, while Megan had a bit of muscle starting to develop but her arms still looked rather stick-like and bony. It was funny, in costume Paladin was America's premier Hero, and Menagerie was perhaps something of a C-lister but certainly recognizable locally and had her fans, but here the two of them were just sitting in a restaurant in casual clothes, both with distinctly dyed hair, and nobody noticed at all.

The waiter appeared as Megan pondered this and she bounced back up, ordering the ribs Alice had suggested and an iced tea. Turning back to her friend she asked "So how's your life been going outside our work?"

[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Megan Daniels

Alice takes a moment to take a sip of the large glass of iced water that has been placed in front of her, clearly taking a moment to think, "To be honest I guess it's a stretch calling it a life." Alice pulls more shifts than any other Hero in San Francisco, not that she knows it, and when she's not on patrol or fighting villains, she seems to spend her time training. Since she and Nate broke up she hasn't dated anyone, hasn't even opened up any of the dating apps she had rather hopefully downloaded onto her phone when she'd finally convinced herself that she'd gotten over him, not that it was the case either way. "I mean... Now that I think about it I suppose my life is the Program really." She looks thoughtful for a moment, before smiling. "But that's OK. I didn't really have much before the Event either, at least now I get to do something that actually helps people." It's sincere, If Alice is anything, it's a bad liar, and really, it's a miracle she's managed to keep her identity secret this long. The popularity of Paladin has probably helped, blue hair has become ubiquitous, especially in San Francisco, and barely draws even a glance these days. "It's always hard to establish something outside of this work, you could be called on for something at any time, and... I mean it really is a job that nobody else will ever really 'get'... At least no one I've met." She falls silent again, her face introspective, before she snaps back to reality and looks brightly at Megan. "But I am a bad example of how to balance work and life, I'm sure you've managed much better than I have. How has it been moving to San Francisco?"

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[Megan Daniels]

Megan nodded, her tea coming about a minute after the water, and once it does she starts to sip it as she listened. She really got it- she might not be quite as completely and utterly tied into the program as Alice, but most Heroes could at least get some of that feeling, and Megan had joined shortly after mostly cutting off her previous ties by moving. On balance Menagerie had probably spent more time in the city than Megan out-of-costume had (assuming you only counted when she was awake), and mostly she was ok with that philosophically but it's not an easy thing to handle mentally considering the much higher stress levels as a Hero than as her standard self.

Ultimately Megan figured this was all just the unfortunate drawbacks to her situation, after all she'd always tried to fix things, to see people who'd lost hope seem to come alive as hope returned. Not to mention she felt strangely agitated by not using her powers for a while and the Program was a pretty safe way to avoid that. She'd been given a lot and now had a chance to give back and to work with others dedicated to actually doing something to improve the world with their unique talents, the benefits were enough to weather the way you really needed to dedicate yourself to the job.

At Alice's question Megan shrugs "I'm doing alright, starting to get to meet some people in the Program, my apartment building isn't very social among neighbors and my side work is all done over the internet so I don't have much other chance to talk to people. I'd say about half the time off-the-book for me is networking, events, social media, all that image stuff. I still get kind of nervous about it even after it turned out alright. Other half is, you know, sleeping, eating, et cetera. So... I guess I do have a life outside work, but it's a rather minimal and boring one." she chuckled and shrugged. Her voice acting kept her from detaching so thoroughly from being normal Megan that it became just a state born from necessity of having to manage her basic needs out of costume, but really she loved being a Hero too much to keep it from being the primary part of her self.