[Midnight Hotel] July catch-alll

[gistful]

Characters: Anyone, everyone.
Date: Month of JULY, 2016.
Location: The Midnight Hotel.
Situation: Catch-all post! Feel free to use this post for anything that happens within the Midnight Hotel during the month, using the subject header to label specific rooms or for specific people. See also the OOC note at the bottom.
Warnings/Rating: Mark your threads if content warnings become applicable, please!

Though the attack on Anton and Jintou occurred outside of the Hotel, its effects can nevertheless be seen on the Hotel’s runnings during July. Jintou is absent, in the first place, though Anton keeps his room in the event he’s found.

For the last few days of June and the first couple days of July Anton is preoccupied with rebuilding the shops he damaged in his attempt to stop Jintou from being taken, and therefore a good deal of the Hotel’s daily running is in the hands of his staff and a handful of trusted ex-gang kedan.

Within the first few days of the month Anton’s health takes a nosedive. Though the chronic condition discovered by Raine and Tony wasn’t previously active, the poisoning attempt apparently changed that and for the rest of this month Anton is under enforced bed-rest—or if not bed-rest then an enforced holiday. For that reason, any and all offers to help out with maintenance, cleaning, cooking, accounting and other daily chores at the Hotel will be welcomed.

Provided, that is, that no one minds the Hotel proprietor hovering over their shoulders—when he isn’t being sat on by a giant wolf to make sure he doesn’t overtax himself.

Hotel rules are, obviously, still in effect.

[ooc: The Midnight Hotel’s status page is available here, with the rules at the top and ongoing status at the bottom. PLEASE POST TO THE STATUS PAGE IF YOUR CHARACTER WOULD LIKE A ROOM, JOB OR AREA IN THE GARAGE, OR ARE MOVING OUT. Anton will manufacture means of payment until Foreigners are able to properly offer recompense or choose to move out.]

Comments

[gistful]

Good. Excellent, even. That took one resource most patrons wouldn't notice unless it was missing into account. Anton might well cook some meals himself, or try--but he knew he couldn't be relied upon for it, and the patrons needed reliable right now.

"You aren't imposing if I asked the question of my own accord," Anton pointed out, and then motioned at the armchair in the corner. "Take a seat. I should appreciate a distraction; 'rest', after a point, becomes indescribably boring."

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene knew an invitation he couldn't refuse when he heard one, and took the offered seat in the armchair. "I know what you mean," he said. His convalescence after being nearly killed by Valdis had tried his patience and been more intolerable than the event itself had.

"I think you know Pepper. She's from my world; we were all in school together. The last time we saw each other before we ended up here...she was pretty angry with me. And she still is, I think. And that's not improved by the news about me and Tony...anyway. I don't really...know what to do around her."

[gistful]

It sounded an awful lot like relationship advice, which Anton found amusing and not quite nostalgic at once. Not quite nostalgic, because his siblings had never gone to him for relationship advice; they'd always gone to Betha or Aichear, because Anton had never had a relationship.

Then there was the fact it was a relationship involving a lover and a lover's good friend, and it spoke of a modern story. Which, after a fashion, it was. It was just that Anton didn't know this particular story, though he knew Tony Stark and Pepper Potts.

"I know her," Anton confirmed to start with, and then paused to consider. "I may need to know more about why she was angry," he said at last, "if you're amenable, and able to tell me." It was still going to be secondhand information, coming from Gene and not Pepper, but some extra context was necessary. If Gene had done something or knew why she was angry, it would change how he might choose to act.

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene smiled sardonically; it was not a particularly nice smile, and all of the bitterness in it was directed at himself. "Nobody's ever especially happy to see the person who accidentally caused an alien apocalypse." Then, a little more subdued: "I did help fix it, though."

He'd tried. Oh my God, did he try. "I think she's still seeing me as who I used to be, not the me who's been here for three years. I'm different now. I'm better."

[gistful]

"How does she know you are?" Anton asked bluntly. "Have you told her, or shown her? If the last she remembers of you is that you harmed others, it will take more than a few months to adjust to the idea you are not the same person--no matter how many words you use. You have had the benefit of those three years, but Ms Potts has not."

The last was said gently, but in the back of Anton's head he was still trying to place Gene in amongst the people he knew from what was, for him, a fictional universe.

[wrathfulkhan]

"I'm doing my best to show her," Gene said, sounding a little aggrieved that Anton would think that he'd think his word would be enough. He of all people knew better, especially after what he'd done.

"Just...even if I do manage to keep my memories if I go home, I can't...I know...Pepper's a constant reminder that people aren't going to forgive me. That I'm going to be hated by a lot of people for the rest of my life, and if SHIELD gets a hold of me, then..." He spread his hands, and shook his head. "I'm sorry. That didn't make any sense, did it?"

[gistful]

Some people didn't. Especially young people. But Anton only nodded at the assertion, and didn't take the aggravation to heart. "It did," he said. "Enough. And you're right. Some people aren't going to forgive you. Some people are going to hate you for the rest of your life. And some people are going to seek revenge."

Who would SHIELD want to have as a captive? Who, aged down to teen years and matching Gene's description, fit Anton's knowledge of Marvel villains? No one was coming immediately to mind.

"Those are the consequences of having done something bad, Gene," he said, again gently. "They won't go away, no matter how many people you save in the meantime. That has nothing to do with Ms Potts. So what is it that bothers you more--the fact that Ms Potts is not yet ready to forgive you, or the idea that some people never will?"

[wrathfulkhan]

"Pepper," Gene said quietly, "I don't care about what the rest of them think of me. I just want my friend back."

He sighed, and reached to tug at the necklace that usually stayed hidden under his shirt, a nervous habit. "I just...I'm not even eighteen back home, and if I get sent back...I've already ruined my life. Tony and Pepper and Rhodes will hunt me down and my only options are to run forever or let them catch up to me. I vowed to turn myself around and protect the Earth, but...they don't know that." The unconscious nervous gesture had graduated to running his thumb over the settings of the rings, counting all nine in his possession. Anton might have been able to see a glint of gold and flame-shaped gems peeking out from between Gene's fingers, if he was watching. "Even if I make amends here in Keeliai, it doesn't matter, because any moment I could be kicked back home, or Tony could, or Pepper could, and I'd be...alone. Without even any happy memories."

[gistful]

The movement caught Anton's eye and he glanced down at Gene's rings. What he had initially overlooked as a teenager's fashion suddenly seemed ... somewhat more threatening, when he saw the shape of the gems. Not a good look, but enough.

He really ought to have taken a closer look at his comics collection. He hadn't out of respect for the fact there were people in Keeliai out of those universes. He hadn't wanted to unduly influence his perception of them. But it had been a little too long since he'd stopped to read them, if he'd overlooked Gene's name and the rings for this long.

In light of that, there was a slightly longer pause than usual before Anton answered, though he had already looked away from the rings, as if the glance was unconscious and nothing else. Which it had been, initially.

"You haven't ruined your life," Anton said calmly. "One cannot ruin one's life at eighteen, unless you choose to deny the potential of the future. Will your future depend on the graciousness of others? Yes. That's a consequence you'll have to accept in order to move forward. When someone commits a crime, Gene, their life no longer belongs to themselves. It belongs to the sufferance of others. That doesn't mean you can't make something of it; it just means you'll have to do so on their terms, and not yours."

Anton inclined his head a little. There was more than one issue in Gene's words. It was difficult choosing which ones to address. "Tell me. If you gave money to a beggar and later went searching for the money you gave away, because you didn't remember where it had gone, would the loss of your money be meaningless?"

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene shook his head mulishly at Anton's words and looked back up at him, fire in his eyes. "My life," he said in a low voice, "belongs to nobody but me. And I would rather die than become a captive again." He'd do it, too; if SHIELD wanted to take him, they sure as hell wouldn't take him alive. Better to die a free man than live a captive, after all.

Perhaps that hadn't been what Anton had meant, but he was fixated on that dark and terrible future that surely awaited him if he fell out of Keeliai with no memories. He knew that he was going to have to run for the rest of his life, however long that might be, spending years away from civilization to atone for his sins. He'd protect the Earth, but it could no longer be his home. He was not welcome there. He never would be again.

"That's different," he said stubbornly, regarding the metaphor. "That isn't something that gets erased."

[gistful]

"Your life belongs to your friends," Anton said simply. "It belongs to the people you wronged. It belongs to the people who care about you. No one exists in a vacuum, Gene. When you make a choice, you change the lives of those around you, and if you make a choice that harms them, then yes, you give over some of your right to decide your future, just as you stole that choice from them. That is part of the nature of responsibility."

Anton wasn't thinking of comics, though. He was thinking of his brothers, the things they done and the ways they'd tried to change the future.

"But you wouldn't remember it," Anton pointed out. "Keeliai wouldn't get erased either, Gene. The things you do here will last also, even if you don't remember them. What you do will always matter, whether you know it or not. We are beholden to each other. We define each other's worlds."

[wrathfulkhan]

"I take responsibility for what I've done," Gene said, a little acid seeping into his tone, "but my life is my own, to lay down for who and what I wish, not in the payment of some imagined debt. I am a bad person, yes, and I have done wrong; but I am no slave."

Anton, in Gene's view, was being entirely unfair. What about those who've wronged him? They're not getting a lecture on the nature of responsibility and being told to hand over their lives to him based on some arbitrary moral compass.

He'd been trying. He really had. And he felt like Anton was telling him that what he did to atone would never be enough.

"Why do you think I'm turning myself around, then? I am a bad person, I will always be a bad person, and I have accepted that. I am trying to do good while I'm here, not in the service of some nonexistent balance of justice, but because I know what I did before was wrong."

If justice really existed, if the universe was really concerned with rewarding good with good and evil with evil, Zhang would have been struck down by a bolt from the heavens before he could ever lay a hand on Gene or his mother.

[gistful]

"That isn't what I meant, Gene," Anton said gently, and rested his chin on his hand to regard Gene for a moment, thinking. Gene was insistent on his control of his own life. Too insistent, but not in a way like a teen who claimed to know best. More like someone frightened of losing it at all.

"Who held you captive?" he asked. He hadn't even recognised Gene, at first. It was entirely possible his history was different as well. "Who told you that you are a bad person?"