dualislogs | you understand, i got a plan for us.

WHO: Errybody in the city
WHAT: Marker tag and NAPs
WHERE: Everywhere in the city for marker tag; the Spenny’s near the dorms for NAPs
WHEN: July 10-31 for marker tag; July 10-14 for NAPs
WARNINGS: Please use these if applicable!

To tag or not to tag - that is the question.

Welcome, one and all, to a long-running Dualis summer tradition: the annual city-wide Dualis Marker Tag Competition! For the next three weeks, all participants who accept the challenge will be given a marker and set free to tag any other participant in the city by making a mark on their skin, while attempting to avoid being tagged themselves. Careful, though - the ink marks last three weeks, so you’ll have to wait until the competition concludes to wash everything off.

Markers come in all colors, even fluorescent, glitter, and glow-in-the-dark, and you can use however many markers your inner child’s heart desires. These markers will leave marks even on people who have chosen not to play, but you can easily purchase an armband, headband, or similar accessory that says NONPARTICIPANT if you so desire. Marking nonparticipants is considered extremely bad form and wins you no prizes, but "misfires" do still happen, on occasion. It’s usually considered polite to offer a mistaken nonparticipant that you’ve marked a small reparation, like coffee or a more adult beverage.

Safe zones do exist! Any establishment can put out a sign that marks it as such - signs in shop windows, chalkboards outside bars, and the like; many do this, just to keep the general chaos and injury/property damage liability down. Tenants of private residences typically agree that their spaces are also safe zones, but that's up to y’all to hash out.

Have fun! And maybe try not to put anyone’s eye out, yeah?

I like to party and by party I mean NAPs.

Look at all of these bright, shining new faces! There’s even a few less bright, less shining faces, but hey, this city welcomes all types. Chances are, if you’ve just arrived, you're seeing some pretty crazy things, unless you're used to an eye-blinding amount of neon, robots, weird-ass technology, magic, and an omnipresent police force...and hey, if you are, congrats, you're gonna settle in juuuuust fine. But for the rest of you, the Head knows this has gotta be pretty overwhelming, right?

Well, since your quaint individual processing units are probably having a hard time, why not link up with another one? By which the Head means...

Hello, new citizens of Dualis, and welcome to your monthly Network Adjacency Protocol~!

NAPs are a monthly community networking event similar to the Earth concept of speed dating! Two citizens (new arrivals and old hands alike) are placed at a table together with a handy cue card of queries to help break the proverbial ice. Ask queries and receive results, or ignore the card and yeet yourself straight into a brand new friendship! But don't be too shy, you've only got ten minutes together, and if you just sit in silence for the whole ten, then the Network Admins are likely to come supervise and try to repair the uplink through a mild shock to the ol' central nervous system. You might find yourself saying all sorts of unintended facts about yourself if that happens...probably better to just make friends, right? Who doesn’t like friends?!

Plus, you get to hang out for a while at the intergalactically renowned Spenny’s Diner! Spenny’s is a declared safe zone from marker tag shenanigans - until you roll out of the door, at least. So pull up a chair, get to know your new neighbors, and enjoy a cup or two of Spenny’s famous Electric Shock coffee, which contains 900 milligrams of caffeine per cup. Hope you didn’t plan on sleeping tonight!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh. Oh.

"Oh, uh... Nothing happened then," he says after a moment of hesitation. How was Billy wherever Tommy had been? David doesn't remember Billy going missing during the whole thing. Damn, this is just complicated, isn't it?

At least he can live down the awkwardness of kissing a guy he had known for two days, by mistake, and having the guy shove him away and run off. To Kate. His ex or whatever.

"Alright then. I don't know how any of that makes sense, but I'll believe it. And I'm going to point out you owe me a bit more than lunch for chasing you down. If memory serves, and mine always does, I never wanted to go to stake out the warehouse. I had sort of gotten out of the hero business."

Tommy doesn’t want to let the New Year’s issue drop; he’s intensely curious about whatever happened that David thinks was awkward. But he seems determined not to tell Tommy about it, at least not while they’re at this speed-friending session. Tommy decides to let it slide for now, but he sticks a pin in it to come back to later.

“Name a single hero who retired and stayed retired,” he says, eyebrow arched as he takes a sip of his coffee. “Hell, even Billy got back in, and he was really determined to quit after that whole thing with Scarlet Witch and the Avengers and everyone else.” He shrugs. “Once a hero, always a hero.”

And if David was willing to track down his brother after knowing Tommy for two whole days, Tommy’s pretty sure his instinct about David still being a hero was correct. He knocks back about half of his coffee in a single gulp and sets the mug back down on the table.

“Tell you what - wanna get out of here? We can go somewhere else, I could start paying off that lunch debt I owe you, and I can tell you about where I’ve been for the last nine or ten months.”

Nine or ten months? David stares at him in shock. Is shocked enough to just nod at the suggestion from Tommy. Not like he hadn't gotten into the strange habit of following speedsters around. Still, he is left looking a bit unsure.

"You're sure we wouldn't get in trouble?" he asks at last, bypassing the whole 'no one retires' thing because he doesn't have a counter argument. Pointless to even point out he hadn't ever wanted to be a hero in the first place. "Actually, is this just an attempt to get me into a club because I said no last time?"

There's no ulterior motive, he knows it. He just feels like he needs to tease Tommy. His sense of humor had been slowly bubbling back up since he started out with the Young Avengers.

"Nah, we're good, we participated. Not like this is even a required activity, I just thought it might be cool to meet some new people." Tommy shrugs, then stands up from his chair, stretches his arms out, and picks up the mug to finish draining his coffee.

"And it's way too early for clubs," he counters, in a similarly teasing tone, "but if you feel like hanging around with me until later, it's always an option." Tommy grins and pushes his chair back into the table. Someday he'll get David to agree to a club. This is just a new challenge.

"C'mon, what do you feel like eating? I know all kinds of good places in town."

For a long moment he sits there, watching Tommy. How does this guy keep throwing him for loops? Then he smiles and stands as well. Seems only fair that Tommy should buy him a meal. After all, he did go try and rescue the guy. He pushes his chair in and leaves a tip before gesturing for the speedster to lead on. David will gladly follow his friend.

“Something filling. And not noodles. Or breakfast food. Tired of the latter, figure we should try something else with the former. Might pass on the club, but I suppose covering ten months could keep me around a while.”

Which was not agreement to club. At all. But maybe he could do what Hank said and find something other than working to do. Tommy just left him wanting to do more, after all.

If it takes him a while to recount his time in the village and David sticks around to listen to the whole thing, Tommy certainly won’t mind. He’s a social person at heart, but it’s almost always on superficial terms. Even though he’d only known David for two days, Tommy had already formed a deeper bond of friendship with him than usual, and being presented with the opportunity to reconnect and strengthen that friendship in this strange city is an opportunity that Tommy fully intends to take.

He heads toward the door and out onto the street, making an effort to walk slow enough that David can keep pace. Filling, not noodles or breakfast food. “How do you feel about burgers? I know an awesome place that’s usually a few blocks down the street. Burgers, every topping under the sun, fries, shakes - the whole nine yards. You’re not vegetarian, are ya? I think they’ve got veggie burgers anyway.”

"I'm not a vegetarian," David assures him, trying to keep his stride brisk enough to be less of an annoyance to Tommy. And he leaves a bit of space between them too, because he is more than aware of how the way he'd gotten to thinking about Tommy was unwelcome. Better not to crowd the guy and make it awkward.

"Fries and shakes sound good too. Lead on, I'll do my best not to slow you down more than any other human would."

Because frankly, everyone and everything slows Tommy down, and David doesn't want to be the source of that sort of annoyance.

It's not that Tommy would find David's closeness unwelcome - he's just unaware of the history David has with a version of Tommy from his future, a future that may not even be accurate anymore. He can tell David is hiding something, and he can guess it's something fairly significant, but as for what that is? Tommy couldn't even begin to guess. He's only ever had crushes on girls before, and he hadn't insisted on befriending David with any stronger feelings involved. Maybe that will change, with more time together, but for now, Tommy is just glad he has the chance to reconnect with David and get to know him better.

"This way," he says, hooking a thumb to the right and turning to lead down the sidewalk. As for slowing him down ... being forced to live without his powers in the village was frustrating as hell, but it did give Tommy some much-needed perspective.

"You know," he says, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans, "where I was before, I didn't have my speed. It feels a little weird to have it back again - not that I'm complaining." He's just a little less impatient about everyone else being slower than him.

Well, for David at least, it's awkward. Yes, something did happen, and mostly he's trying to ignore that it did. Which isn't really easy when he was expecting to have to, what, grovel to get his friend to respect him? Maybe try and sit on Tommy to get the guy to listen to an explanation? And now, instead, it's like it's right after work and they're going to grab food all over again.

"So you had to come down to snail level for a time. I'm sorry for you," David says, a bit thoughtful. How would that have affected Tommy? Like he even knows. "I'm sure you're glad to be back to being too fast for people to keep up with."

What you don't let near can't hurt you.

you understand, i got a plan for us.

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