[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Nathan Havelock + wearing

"Hey, I happen to enjoy takeout, sometimes all you really want is a nice, big, cheeeeesy pizza. The kind where you can feel the heart attacks coming on when you eat it. Half the fun of that is ordering it and waiting for it to show up." She shook her head, waving a hand to further highlight her disagreement. "No no no, they're lovely, but it's like a kind of food that they don't normally eat in France. This is more traditional stuff. I mean, not many people are as good a chef as the guy here, but it's pretty close to what people actually eat, instead of extra fancy stuff for people who are just interested in haute cuisine." She shrugged, "The chefs there are usually amazing, but they focus more on impressing people than actually making amazing food. There's no soul in it. I dunno if you can taste it or anything, and I'd love to me a Michelin starred chef, but it's just not the same once it's about money instead of the love of the food." She dropped her head back a little, "Yeah it's hard, I love being a Hero, and I'll never change that, but it wasn't my first dream y'know? No matter how unlikely I've still got to do something to keep working for it, otherwise it just feels like I've given up on it, and I don't want to give up on it yet." She realised as he talked that in her attempt to change the subject she had utterly failed to do so. They were still talking about her, albeit just a different identities of hers. It was perhaps coming across as a little self-centred. "Oh so much more fun. But what was your secret dream job?" The waiter arrived at precisely the right moment to take their orders, glancing at their wine glasses as he did and deciding that they did not yet need refilling. He took their orders quietly, smiled and nodded didn't bother asking if they wanted sides, too professional and knowing that if Alice wanted something she would say so. "Come on, spill, what did little Nate want to be?"

© seadra of gs

[Nathan Havelock]

Kiss and Tell

Nate responded to Alice’s pizza love with an appropriately cheesy grin. “Absolutely. Extra cheese, obviously, and also covered in every piece of meat the shop stocks… and a bunch of jalapenos; perfect!”

He wondered briefly if the restaurant stuff were judging them for discussing such lowly cuisine. It didn’t actually give off much of a pretentious vibe – beyond the wine choices, of course – but there was still quite a step from authentic French food to the dormant heart attack which was a greasy takeaway pizza. Nah, they were probably just as big fans of pizza as anybody.

“Awesome, I’m excited,” he said enthusiastically. “That’s a good sign for what I can expect of the portion size too. I hate it when you leave a restaurant more hungry than when you came in after a mouthful of deconstructed clam chowder.” Nate would probably give that imaginary dish a go if it passed his plate, however. He could appreciate that kind of food on some level, even when his stomach didn’t, but tonight he was ready for a real feast.

He smiled softly. “Maybe they’ll let you take a Super Sabbatical,” he teased. “Take some time to conquer the culinary world, save the world one tastebud at a time?”

It was hard to imagine a Hero scene without Paladin. She was one of the most prominent figures of the scene, the most iconic, and she was still working at the top of her game. It didn’t seem like she was about to take a break anytime soon, either.

“My secret dream job? Oh boy, I don’t know if little Nate was really thinking about what kind of job he wanted to do when he grew up. I guess I just always assumed when I was younger that I’d end up working for my dad or something.”

He thought about it for a little, swirling the contents of his glass. He took a sip for inspiration.

“Back in middle school, I wanted to be a stuntman. For like, a week,” he clarified, before Alice could really rip into him. “My friend Harriet had pushed me out of her treehouse and I just happened to nail the landing on the trampoline below so I got convinced I had a gift for it. Then I broke my elbow trying to recreate it a few days later and the dream died pretty quick.” He sighed dramatically. “So I figured I’d go to medical school and learn how to fix broken bones instead – much less painful.”

Alice Morrow

419 words

ψ

[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Nathan Havelock + wearing

"Mmmmmmm." Alice closed her eyes at the thought for a moment, as though imagining the pizza in front of her at that very moment. They snapped open before long, and she looked around guiltily, she probably shouldn't be thinking about another place's food while sat in a restaurant, it sort of felt like she was cheating, being disloyal. "Maybe next time we can do pizza." She giggled at the deconstructed clam chowder joke, briefly wondering how she would go about making it herself. It was a rare day that food wasn't on her mind, she had joked once that she might have a tape worm, but she was well aware that she needed to work hard in order to stay in shape. Food was, for her, a treasured vice. "Ha, I wish. But no, I don't think that would be likely. It's not like they wouldn't let me. I could quit if I wanted, but I feel like I should be doing it, y'know. What's that word?" She searched for the right word to describe how she felt, "Vocational! That's what it is, like it's something I'm meant to do." She shrugged, it sounded a little clichéd, but it was true. She felt at least somewhat responsible for the state the world was currently in. After all, she had been there when the Doctor had unleashed the Event, she had though that the strange woman was doing the right thing. She didn't have that surety anymore. There was a lot more uncertainty for her in this new world. But she had the power to help, so if she didn't use it, then whatever bad happened would be even more her responsibility. His lack of early childhood ambition wasn't encouraging, but from the sound of it he'd probably had a much easier childhood than she had. Not that she blamed him for that. How could she? Nonetheless, she was ready to tease him for it when he spoke again, this time with a much more entertaining response. "A stunt man?" She sounded both delighted and incredulous. The mature and put together doctor had wanted to be a stunt man. "Awwwww, you mean you could have been a famous stuntman. I want to be able to ask if I've seen any movies you've been in." She mock pouted, "A doctor is so boring compared to a stuntman." They continued to talk, joking and flirting until the food arrived a few minutes later. It was steaming, clearly freshly made, and heavenly smells wafted over the two of them as the waiter whisked their glasses away and replaced them with a new one, filled with wine presumably tailored to their chosen dishes. He asked if they wanted anything, then nodded professionally and disappeared. "Let's hope that I've not been making up all the stuff I said about this place."

© seadra of gs

[Nathan Havelock]

Kiss and Tell

There was no question or hesitation in Alice’s voice there. Clearly she was also convinced that there was going to be a next time – a next time with the possibility of stuffing themselves with takeout pizza. It was the perfect idea for two people who were both very busy. Nate wasn’t exactly sure on Paladin’s hours but he could imagine that they were as variable as they were anti-social. She was probably on alert most of the time anyway, just in case a major meta attack decided it just couldn’t wait until the morning. A more lowkey date was ideal.

Having said that, Nate was very happy to be eating in a fancy restaurant with a fancy-looking lady sat across the table. It felt classy and nice – a far cry from sneaking around a noisy, dark VIP party.

“That would be awesome – garlic bread too, obviously?”

This was an important test. Nate wasn’t sure he could date somebody who didn’t look at a warm slice of garlic bread with the same look of love and adoration as he did. It had been his guilty pleasure as a teenager – Carol and Lewis Havelock weren’t big fans, so he’d only ever had it at friends’ houses. And on the odd occasion he’d secretly ordered it to the house for a midnight snack, of course.

“I feel that too,” Nate said happily. “I feel like it’s so rare to actually really enjoy my job, you know? I hated taking the time off to go to New York,” he confessed, following it quickly with a reassuring smile, “But it was definitely worth it!”

Alice seemed a little too enthusiastic about Nate’s brief flirtation with throwing himself out of trees for a living. It probably tied in with the fact that her own current occupation was highly dangerous and adrenaline-filled. Psychiatry and neurology were cool to Nate, but maybe not quite so high risk.

“Hey, if I wanted to have dinner with somebody who disapproved of my career choices I would have dropped in on my parents,” he teased. “I guess the stuntman market is probably oversaturated with metahumans trying to make a quick buck now, anyway. Better to just keep practising boring ol’ medicine…”

The next glass of wine was different, white this time. There was also white wine in his dish, but Nate doubted that it was the same. The nectar in his glass was absolutely delightful and definitely not to be wasted on scallops (delicious though they were).

Alice seemed apprehensive, a little worried that Nate might be underwhelmed, but he was already halfway through a mouthful of scallop when she spoke. Not wanting to spit food everywhere, Nate opted for a series of pantomime-like expressions indicating the journey his tastebuds were going through right now.

Finally, he swallowed. “Incredible. Incroyable!” Nate kissed his fingers. “You wanna try some?”

Alice Morrow

477 words

ψ

[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Nathan Havelock + wearing

"Oh my god, I think I'd have to leave right now if you didn't like garlic bread. I could genuinely live on the stuff. And gum, cause it might taste good but garlicky breath forever would suck." Any order of pizza inevitably came with garlic bread on the side, even though it also meant they would never finish the pizza or the garlic bread. Still cold pizza was a pretty good breakfast, and Alice had a secret recipe for reheating leftover pizza, so it wasn't a great loss to have some left. "That's so cool though, like loads of people I was in high school with just went straight to college. Half of them just spend the whole time getting drunk, and the others just moan about how hard all the work is." She held up a hand in a gesture of apology, "I mean, I get that it's not supposed to be easy, but none of them actually seem to be enjoying college for like, college. It's cool to meet someone who just loves what they're doing." She smiled coyly, glad that he had added the last comment, "I'd say your vacation was worth it too though." She blushed at his teasing, realising it had probably felt pretty bad that she'd sounded more excited about his brief childhood dream job than his actual one. She backtracked desperately. "No, I didn't mean… uh… I think what you do is really cool… being a stuntman just sounds fun… but not like… as good… as what you do!" She did her best to imitate a tomato. Turning her attention back to her meal, she spread the terrine onto a toasted slice of baguette in an attempt to move on from her latest faux pas. She was really killing this date, literally. She almost rejected his offer of some of his dish. She'd had it before, and didn't want to deprive him of any of it herself. Then she realised her opportunity to recover something of the date. "I'd love some!" As she ate it, enjoying the simple flavours, she searched her mind for something else to say. "So when you're not helping people with their powers, what do you do with your time?"

© seadra of gs

[Nathan Havelock]

Kiss and Tell

Alice passed the garlic bread test with flying colours, as expected. Nate was struck by how refreshing it was to be having dinner with a woman who didn’t have any reservations about discussing her love of food. Of course he’d known plenty of girls who loved food, but in his experience it normally took a few dates for them to really admit that. Alice might as well be wearing a sign on her head she was so open about her passionate love for food – and not just expensive haute cuisine but greasy garlic bread too!

Nate laughed, definitely recognising the college kid stereotype. His own time at university had been very intense and he’d spent quite a lot of time getting involved in medical research rather than lying around a dorm room complaining about his latest hangover, but he’d also definitely had his moments. Med students didn’t have a work-hard-play-hard reputation for no reason, after all.

“Of course you’d say that,” Nate teased as Alice offered him a coy smile. “Here’s to New York.” He raised his glass cheerfully.

She stumbled over herself trying to make Nate feel better about not having achieved his weeklong dream of being a stuntman, which was very cute despite the fact that he hadn’t even been remotely offended by her words. The redness of her cheeks said it all, and Nate held back from teasing her any further on the subject.

“What do I do with my life when I’m not at work? Oh man, I wish I had a cool answer,” he said, shaking his head at his own lameness. “My job takes up a lot of my time – I take a lot of it back with me so you can usually find me up late reading exciting journal articles.” He gave her a wink. “I’m not all lame, I have a few friends that I hang with when we all happen to be in town at the same time. Little road trips, beach trips, that kinda thing… Oh! I’ve been getting into a few Netflix series but also a ton of motorbike racing for some reason. Just watching, for the moment,” he clarified. The temptation to get a bike was very real, however.

The meal continued to be absolutely delicious, with the main course somehow even better than the first. The time was flying by and Nate was so caught up in the conversation that he had to keep reminding himself to take sips of the fantastic wine they were being served. As the meal started drawing to a close, Nate had to actually decline the waiter’s offer of a final glass of wine.

“Big day tomorrow,” he confessed apologetically, resisting the urge to accept the glass of wine anyway. This place had excellent taste. “Better not. Don’t hold back on my account,” he added to Alice as the waiter left. “Tomorrow’s a long shift, plus we’ve had this major breakthrough with a patient and I’m the one who’ll be overseeing her treatment starting tomorrow. I’ll be fine but I’d feel bad if I showed up hungover.” He stuck his tongue out. “Have you ever had to work on a hangover? The thought of it sounds nightmare-ish.”

Nate grinned, imagining a hungover – or maybe even still drunk – Paladin attempting to take down villains. He couldn’t imagine that was a state Alice let herself get into too often.

Alice Morrow

565 words

ψ

[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Nathan Havelock + wearing

Raising her glass in response, Alice laughed, "Don't, you'll make me even more embarrassed than I already am." She'd had a good time in New York, and although it hadn't been that long ago, already it brought a fond expression to her face. It was probably an easily read expression, so she pulled herself out of the reverie and back into the moment. After all, she'd rather be enjoying the here and now with Nathan, rather than the moment they'd shared in her hotel room, nice though that had been. She wasn't surprised to hear that his job took up a lot of time; it wasn't all that dissimilar to her own life. When she wasn't patrolling or dealing with an incident she was training. Even when that wasn't the case she had to be on call most of the time. She'd managed to get a rare complete day off tonight. In theory that meant no one should call her. There were other Heroes in San Francisco who could deal with any problems that might arise. She'd have to deal with the weight of her conscience later. Hopefully nothing too bad would come up. She spent some time with Ashley when she was around and Stephen when he was in town, but there weren't that many other people that she hung out with anymore. Most of her old friends just seemed too immature now, so completely separated from the life she had now. They were in college or working. None of them had anything in the way of responsibility, not the kind that she had now. Just going to New York seemed to have taken almost endless amounts of paperwork to approve, but fortunately there had been no major events in her absence. There had been issues of course, but they had been dealt with by the other Heroes of the Bay area. Her Netflix account had been a great help in that. "I don't know what I would do without Netflix. Honestly I think I live on there when I'm not training or on duty. Or cooking. I love trying new recipes. Or hanging with Ashley." She realised that she was losing the point of her own explanation, "Let's just say I use it a lot." She pulled a face as Nate rejected a refill on his wine, but followed his lead. She'd been a little too drunk in New York, and she'd used that experience to moderate her intake of alcohol since. She wasn't drunk yet, the addition of a full meal had made sure of that, but much more and she might be. She didn't want to embarrass herself, plus there was always the chance there would be an emergency the city just couldn't handle without her. She smiled, genuinely pleased for him. "That's so great. I hope it goes well tomorrow! "I've just about managed to get away without working while hungover. Or drunk. Can you imagine what the papers would say? Although I wouldn't have to worry about that. I think my agent would already have killed me." She shrugged, sipping at the small amount of wine that remained in her glass. "I guess you won't be coming over tonight then? It makes sense, we should probably wait until the third date for that kind of thing." She winked, but couldn't stop herself from grinning as well. A little later they found themselves outside of Alice's apartment building. Nate had walked her home, in proper gentlemanly fashion, though Alice still found it funny. Any mugger who had targeted them wouldn't be regretting it because of him after all. She resisted the urge to invite him up, it would be so easy, but she knew he had a long, and early day the next day, she didn't want to be that kind of girl. "So I guess this is it? I had a nice night." Wow Alice, what a choice of words…

© seadra of gs

[Nathan Havelock]

Kiss and Tell

Their Netflix discussion derailed into a series of TV and film recommendations, with Nate insisting that Alice wouldn’t be able to make it through ‘Nailed It!’ – a show specifically starring terrible bakers – without turning it off and making the damn cake herself. As a result the conversation eventually steered back to Alice’s roommate, who Nate was beginning to wonder if he should feel jealous of. Alice had listed “hanging with Ashley” as a specific hobby of hers, after all. He was also feeling like he should fear Ashley’s judgement if he wanted to keep dating her BFF.

He couldn’t help but notice the face Alice pulled as he rejected a final glass of wine. Nate felt bad, almost tempted to take up the wine after all – work be damned. Fortunately Alice didn’t seem to have taken it to heart and she too avoided having another glass of wine.

He thanked her cheerily as she wished him well for the coming day. “I’m sure it will, we have some great teams up at the MNRU. My main supervisor seems pretty confident, but I still want to make sure I’m on form just in case. I’m guessing you have a pretty busy day tomorrow too, as always?”

As expected, Alice was a well-behaved, responsible Hero. He could imagine the celebrity lifestyle that accompanied Hero work would be enough to send some down the wrong path, but even before he had known the face behind Paladin’s mask Nate had been struck by the sense of honour and righteousness with which she seemed to conduct herself. Paladin truly was a great icon for the Hero Program.

“Well, I’m glad you won’t be breaking that excellent streak tonight, then,” Nate said with a grin. “And uh, no probably not… but can I walk you home? It would be nice to show you my gentlemanly side for a change.” The two exchanged a knowing look. “Not that you really need my help in getting around the city safely,” he laughed.

Alice’s apartment building was pretty standard – not as flashy as Nate might have expected from somebody who must be drowning under sponsorship offers. It was still perfectly nice, however. Tempting as it was to follow Alice inside and see if the interior was just as pleasant (amongst… other motives) Nate knew that he needed to head back soon.

“Me too. That was the perfect restaurant, thanks so much for suggesting it. And hey, I’m really looking forward to that third date…” He raised his eyebrows suggestively. “How about a second date too? Still down for pizza and garlic bread?”

How Nate could still feel any kind of cravings for pizza after that delicious meal was a miracle. He would have to fight the ridiculous but genuine urge to grab a takeaway slice on his way home. Man, he definitely needed to get back into the gym soon. He’d seen the way Alice had checked out his abs in New York, and he certainly didn’t want his pizza-based gluttony to let him down on future dates.

Alice Morrow

509 words

ψ

[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + @ + wearing

"I am always down for pizza and garlic bread…" She briefly considered it. "Although maybe not right now, that was a pretty good dinner. I don't think I need any more food tonight." She'd definitely feel bloated if she crammed down a pizza after the wonderful meal they'd just enjoyed. It would take a lot of sessions to burn off all those calories as well. Not that there was any shortage of training opportunities. She'd developed a habit of working out and training regularly. Alice rolled her eyes dramatically, "You mean I can't just skip the second date? Sooooo old fashioned." She grinned, then stepped a little closer to the young doctor, enjoying the faint scents of his proximity. It wasn't as if she hadn't been this close already, closer in fact, but this felt a little different, just a little more… intimate. She held back from the urge to trace her fingers across his shirt. That would definitely have held different connotations, and much as she wanted to invite him in, she didn't want to pressure him. She could do that on the third date. Not that he would need too much pressuring, he'd come back after New York after all. She was glad that he'd turned out to be just as funny, smart and charming without the haze of alcohol clouding her senses. Although after several glasses of wine she was definitely feeling a buzz. She'd been feeling that buzz when she'd first met him though, and more than that before the night was out. She was expecting something at this point though, and her eyes flickered to his lips before meeting his gaze again. Nate was a lot more observant than most men, Alice reflected as she finally shut the door to her apartment. It had taken hardly any hinting at all. Ashley was out, so Alice flicked the lights on as she entered, dropping her bag onto the breakfast counter in the kitchen area. She wished that her roommate was home but the brunette had vacated the apartment in case the date had gotten more serious. It was probably wise, but Alice still wished she could take to her best friend about the night, about how excited she was for their next date. She'd just have to catch her up when she came back, maybe with some popcorn and a trashy romcom playing in the background.

© seadra of gs