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Started By
Message
re: Bard's Poor Attempt at a Combined Marvel/DC Universe (an ongoing project)
Posted on 5/7/23 at 10:07 am to Bard
Posted on 5/7/23 at 10:07 am to Bard
“Ma’am? You can’t go in there!”
The short, round, black woman ignored the general’s secretary as she stormed by her then barged into the office beyond.
“Ross! What the hell do you think you’re doing by moving my people to Building Seven!?! You don’t make decisions for my people behind my back! You talk to me first! And who the hell is that woman outside your office? Where the hell is Millie?”
General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross slowly lifted his eyes from the paperwork on his desk but didn’t look first at Amanda Waller’s angrily huffing form standing right before him, instead he purposely looked over her shoulder to the fretting form of his new secretary standing in the doorway. “It’s okay, Cindi.” Wisely, Cindi closed the door as she quickly fled the room.
Ross went back to looking at his paperwork while addressing Waller, pointedly doing so as if she were a subordinate. He knew she hated when people failed to be intimidated by her.
“We’ve discussed this, Amanda,” he said, not using her title because that angered her as well. “You have people on this base, but it’s my base,” he continued in a tone an adult might use to explain something to a child. She hated that as well, he knew. General Ross knew Amanda Waller’s temperament, he knew that a great many things angered her. He also knew it gave her a problem with stomach ulcers, a problem she was determined to keep secret. One day he would hit her with the fact that he knew about it, but not today. Just thinking about her potential reaction put a small smile on his lips.
He continued, still studying the paperwork on his desk. “I moved your Pegasus eggheads to Seven because the Pentagon has moved up testing for the gamma bomb. Again. We need as much brain-power on this project as possible if we’re going to make the deadline.”
Waller slammed the palms of her hands on the general’s desk. “I don’t give a tinker’s damn about you’re bomb project! Reverse-engineering the Richards’ technology takes precedent so my people are going back and that’s final! You are to never move nor use my people again without getting my permission first!”
Ross looked up and directly at her then. Without looking away, he put down the papers he had been “reading” as he stood up. Standing fully upright, he stared quietly down at the diminutive woman across the desk from him for a moment. With calm steel in his voice he uttered a single word, “No.” After another moment’s silence he added, with slight sarcasm, “Director.”
In a voice which was almost a growl, “Don’t make me pull rank on you, ‘Thad.’” Her glare was intense, challenging.
Ross knew this was a test of wills, in her world the first person to look away lost. He could stare with the best of them, but he also knew when retreat was the better part of strategy. He looked away first. He could almost feel Amanda’s triumph radiating out of her… right up to the second she realized he had looked from her and to the phone he was reaching for.
Now he looked back at her as he handed her the receiver. “Star 2-2 will get you directly to the Chairman of the Joint Chief’s’ office. Star 1-1 will ring that red phone on the President’s desk. While you’re telling them you’re somehow rescinding their orders, tell them I said ‘hi’.”
He had her and she knew it. Best of all for him, she knew he knew it too. Without another word she turned sharply and left, his smile followed in her wake.
The short, round, black woman ignored the general’s secretary as she stormed by her then barged into the office beyond.
“Ross! What the hell do you think you’re doing by moving my people to Building Seven!?! You don’t make decisions for my people behind my back! You talk to me first! And who the hell is that woman outside your office? Where the hell is Millie?”
General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross slowly lifted his eyes from the paperwork on his desk but didn’t look first at Amanda Waller’s angrily huffing form standing right before him, instead he purposely looked over her shoulder to the fretting form of his new secretary standing in the doorway. “It’s okay, Cindi.” Wisely, Cindi closed the door as she quickly fled the room.
Ross went back to looking at his paperwork while addressing Waller, pointedly doing so as if she were a subordinate. He knew she hated when people failed to be intimidated by her.
“We’ve discussed this, Amanda,” he said, not using her title because that angered her as well. “You have people on this base, but it’s my base,” he continued in a tone an adult might use to explain something to a child. She hated that as well, he knew. General Ross knew Amanda Waller’s temperament, he knew that a great many things angered her. He also knew it gave her a problem with stomach ulcers, a problem she was determined to keep secret. One day he would hit her with the fact that he knew about it, but not today. Just thinking about her potential reaction put a small smile on his lips.
He continued, still studying the paperwork on his desk. “I moved your Pegasus eggheads to Seven because the Pentagon has moved up testing for the gamma bomb. Again. We need as much brain-power on this project as possible if we’re going to make the deadline.”
Waller slammed the palms of her hands on the general’s desk. “I don’t give a tinker’s damn about you’re bomb project! Reverse-engineering the Richards’ technology takes precedent so my people are going back and that’s final! You are to never move nor use my people again without getting my permission first!”
Ross looked up and directly at her then. Without looking away, he put down the papers he had been “reading” as he stood up. Standing fully upright, he stared quietly down at the diminutive woman across the desk from him for a moment. With calm steel in his voice he uttered a single word, “No.” After another moment’s silence he added, with slight sarcasm, “Director.”
In a voice which was almost a growl, “Don’t make me pull rank on you, ‘Thad.’” Her glare was intense, challenging.
Ross knew this was a test of wills, in her world the first person to look away lost. He could stare with the best of them, but he also knew when retreat was the better part of strategy. He looked away first. He could almost feel Amanda’s triumph radiating out of her… right up to the second she realized he had looked from her and to the phone he was reaching for.
Now he looked back at her as he handed her the receiver. “Star 2-2 will get you directly to the Chairman of the Joint Chief’s’ office. Star 1-1 will ring that red phone on the President’s desk. While you’re telling them you’re somehow rescinding their orders, tell them I said ‘hi’.”
He had her and she knew it. Best of all for him, she knew he knew it too. Without another word she turned sharply and left, his smile followed in her wake.
1
Posted on 5/9/23 at 1:47 pm to Bard
“Back again, I see.”
Betty looked up and smiled at Bruce. “I got lost is all,” she joked. She had enjoyed their talk the previous day. He had told her he came here daily so she hoped her presence hadn’t changed that, she as glad to see it hadn’t.
“I hope you weren’t planning on getting another pickle. Today they finally remembered that I have asked them for weeks to not give me one.”
She held up two pickles. Betty had explained the problem to the corporal who worked the counter at the cafeteria. The corporal knew who her father was so when she suggested giving her the extra pickle “that scientist guy” didn’t want, he did.
Bruce smiled as he sat across from her and began unpacking his lunch.
“Bruce, I think I need to apologize for yesterday.”
Bruce stopped what he was doing and looked up and cocked his head, curiosity written across his face.
“You may not have realized it yesterday, but when you offered me your pickle I… took it wrong.”
“You did seem a little miffed, but I’m used to it.”
She smiled again. He was so easy-going, not like the brash, alpha males she normally came into contact with, that he was like a breath of fresh air. In order to keep that air fresh, she knew, she had to be honest with him even if he didn’t realize she had done something wrong to him. No, she corrected herself, especially because I did something wrong to him. “No, it wasn’t you, it was me. Most of the guys I meet tend to want to jump the gun a bit and after a while of that, girls can get overly sensitive to anything any guy says.”
“You mean like offering you their pickle?” The innocence of how he said that touched her. She almost let it drop, but she knew it would bother her to no end if she did.
“Yes, when I first meet them and right off the bat they offer me their... ‘pickle’.” With the last word she used her fingers to do air quotes.
Still with a confused look Bruce responded, “oh,” and then as realization dawned across his face, “ohhhhhhhh! Yeah… no. I really just meant the disgusting green thing.” In that moment she realized two things: that he was a little flustered by that revelation and that she liked that it flustered him. He was definitely not the arrogant, blowhard type she normally ran into.
“I know. I realized you weren’t that sort of guy the more we talked. I put my history of bad experiences on you and it was wrong and I’m sorry.” There, she said it and she felt good about it.
“Thanks. I’m sorry you keep meeting guys like that.”
Before she realized what she was doing she said, “Thank you, but I don’t think it’s them so much as it is me.” Why had she said that? Honesty about being unfair to someone was one thing, but what had caused her to admit this about herself to someone she had only known for a day?
“What makes you say that?”
She sighed inwardly. She opened this can of worms, it would be rude to just shut it down now. “My mother died when I was very young and my dad has always been an alpha male’s alpha male. Sometimes he’s like a force of nature, like a storm.” Like a ‘thunder’storm, she thought to herself. “I guess with his being such a dominating figure and my only parents, something about how he raised me attracts others like him.”
“You don’t seem like you like that type though.”
She sighed outwardly. “I’ve always kind of liked that ‘real manly-man’ kind of guy but I think a lot of it’s been because that’s what I grew up around. It's all I've known, even in college.”
“I sense a ‘but’ in here somewhere.”
“’But,’ I’m just tired. I’m tired of the possessive jealousy, I’m tired of the pictures I don’t want, I’m tired of being asked for pictures I’m not going to take, I’m tired of being treated like a cross between a maid and a murse-“
“A ‘murse’?”
“A man’s purse.” She tilted her head to the side, smiled and batted her eyes at him, “Something pretty dangling from their arm?”
Bruce snort-laughed.
“Seriously, I would just like to meet a guy who’s interested in guy who’s interested in getting to know me.”
Bruce looked at her, amused. “Okay, so tell me about yourself.”
“What do you want to know?”
“You aren’t military. That I can tell, you aren’t a scientist either.”
“Okay.” She didn’t like where this was going…
“So how is it that you have a job doing accounting at one of the most secretive military bases in the entire country?”
She had been afraid this question was going to come up eventually. Many of the people she worked with knew who she was simply because of her last name. That she wasn’t military but had enough security clearance to even know about the base, much less be there, cemented who she was and how she got there. And she hated it.
Around the other side of the building behind Bruce, a door slammed open and was followed by a shout.
“BANNER!”
She knew that voice in an instant.
Betty looked up and smiled at Bruce. “I got lost is all,” she joked. She had enjoyed their talk the previous day. He had told her he came here daily so she hoped her presence hadn’t changed that, she as glad to see it hadn’t.
“I hope you weren’t planning on getting another pickle. Today they finally remembered that I have asked them for weeks to not give me one.”
She held up two pickles. Betty had explained the problem to the corporal who worked the counter at the cafeteria. The corporal knew who her father was so when she suggested giving her the extra pickle “that scientist guy” didn’t want, he did.
Bruce smiled as he sat across from her and began unpacking his lunch.
“Bruce, I think I need to apologize for yesterday.”
Bruce stopped what he was doing and looked up and cocked his head, curiosity written across his face.
“You may not have realized it yesterday, but when you offered me your pickle I… took it wrong.”
“You did seem a little miffed, but I’m used to it.”
She smiled again. He was so easy-going, not like the brash, alpha males she normally came into contact with, that he was like a breath of fresh air. In order to keep that air fresh, she knew, she had to be honest with him even if he didn’t realize she had done something wrong to him. No, she corrected herself, especially because I did something wrong to him. “No, it wasn’t you, it was me. Most of the guys I meet tend to want to jump the gun a bit and after a while of that, girls can get overly sensitive to anything any guy says.”
“You mean like offering you their pickle?” The innocence of how he said that touched her. She almost let it drop, but she knew it would bother her to no end if she did.
“Yes, when I first meet them and right off the bat they offer me their... ‘pickle’.” With the last word she used her fingers to do air quotes.
Still with a confused look Bruce responded, “oh,” and then as realization dawned across his face, “ohhhhhhhh! Yeah… no. I really just meant the disgusting green thing.” In that moment she realized two things: that he was a little flustered by that revelation and that she liked that it flustered him. He was definitely not the arrogant, blowhard type she normally ran into.
“I know. I realized you weren’t that sort of guy the more we talked. I put my history of bad experiences on you and it was wrong and I’m sorry.” There, she said it and she felt good about it.
“Thanks. I’m sorry you keep meeting guys like that.”
Before she realized what she was doing she said, “Thank you, but I don’t think it’s them so much as it is me.” Why had she said that? Honesty about being unfair to someone was one thing, but what had caused her to admit this about herself to someone she had only known for a day?
“What makes you say that?”
She sighed inwardly. She opened this can of worms, it would be rude to just shut it down now. “My mother died when I was very young and my dad has always been an alpha male’s alpha male. Sometimes he’s like a force of nature, like a storm.” Like a ‘thunder’storm, she thought to herself. “I guess with his being such a dominating figure and my only parents, something about how he raised me attracts others like him.”
“You don’t seem like you like that type though.”
She sighed outwardly. “I’ve always kind of liked that ‘real manly-man’ kind of guy but I think a lot of it’s been because that’s what I grew up around. It's all I've known, even in college.”
“I sense a ‘but’ in here somewhere.”
“’But,’ I’m just tired. I’m tired of the possessive jealousy, I’m tired of the pictures I don’t want, I’m tired of being asked for pictures I’m not going to take, I’m tired of being treated like a cross between a maid and a murse-“
“A ‘murse’?”
“A man’s purse.” She tilted her head to the side, smiled and batted her eyes at him, “Something pretty dangling from their arm?”
Bruce snort-laughed.
“Seriously, I would just like to meet a guy who’s interested in guy who’s interested in getting to know me.”
Bruce looked at her, amused. “Okay, so tell me about yourself.”
“What do you want to know?”
“You aren’t military. That I can tell, you aren’t a scientist either.”
“Okay.” She didn’t like where this was going…
“So how is it that you have a job doing accounting at one of the most secretive military bases in the entire country?”
She had been afraid this question was going to come up eventually. Many of the people she worked with knew who she was simply because of her last name. That she wasn’t military but had enough security clearance to even know about the base, much less be there, cemented who she was and how she got there. And she hated it.
Around the other side of the building behind Bruce, a door slammed open and was followed by a shout.
“BANNER!”
She knew that voice in an instant.
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