Sparks of New Beginnings (TAG)

[Timothy Smith]

A day off, when he wasn't on call, or anything like that. How long had it been since Tim had had a day off, like truly off?

However long it had been it was long enough that he had absolutely no idea what to do with himself. He'd taken to just milling about, walking around town, trying to decide what to do. Medically required time off was rough. He did a lot of thinking about stuff that was happening. Especially the fact that his best friend's mom was back in town and put a bullet in his shoulder the other day. But there was Nihilo still out there, and he had to figure out some way to bring him in, and there was whatever Alice was getting up to, she was being cagey about something. He trusted her though, so it was probably fine.

Tim pulled out his phone and started looking at getting a ticket to a movie, and almost instantly groaned. Sure, it was neat that there was a character based on him in a major Marvel motion picture, but they cast Andrew Garfield for the role. Tim didn't see the resemblance, and watching a character literally based off of you on the big screen was a little surreal and odd. Thankfully, his character didn't have a big role in the film, so he wasn't being mobbed by people.

He was just looking at a film about a yellow semi-anthropomorphic mouse private investigator when he heard tires squealing. He snapped his head up and identified the sound quickly. People were scrambling to hug the buildings as a drunk driver swerved around the corner.

It was his day off. Someone else would stop this guy. Right?

Tim almost believed that for half a second before he knew he had to act.

"GET OUT OF THE WAY! EVERYONE LOOK OUT!"

Well that was redundant, except...

Crap. It wasn't nearly as funny when someone actually had headphones in and couldn't hear a desperate warning. She was RIGHT in this driver's erratic path.

Medical leave be damned, he had to save her. Energy crackled to life around him, and he took off. Blasts of heat melted the tires into a sticky, gooey mess. Then he dropped himself in between the car and the woman, shouted "Cover your eyes!" and proceeded to fire light as solid as he felt comfortable making it into the front of the car to slow its momentum. He groaned under the strain, the stitches in his shoulder started to pop, but finally, after a moment of massive tension, the car was stopped. He pointed at someone who had gotten out of the way earlier. "Hey. Call the cops, okay? It's technically my day off."

He tapped the woman on the shoulder. "Hey. You okay? That was close."

Adara Chase

[Adara Chase]

we'll be raising our hands

shining up to the sky

'cause we got the fire

❧

She'd become accustomed to not needing to be rescued. She'd had to save herself on numerous occasions and typically, as a thief, she wasn't the one needing saving - she was the one causing the hero trouble. And oh did she like trouble.

Currently, however, she was just taking a stroll, headphones - the large kind gamers wore - over her ears. They were black with a flame pictured over each ear. She had them hooked to her phone and was listening to a podcast that was covering the latest exhibit to enter the city's local museum. It was a temporary exhibit before it would be shipped off to the Museum of Natural History. There were priceless gems involved which made her smirk--

She turned around just in time to see the car. She pushed her headphones down so they hung around her neck and opened her mouth, starting to form a curse. A red glow started to form on her hands. Before she could get a word out, however, a young man was in-between her and the car.

She registered his words and tightly closed her eyes, also turning her head away out of instinct. Her mind was reeling, trying to figure out how she'd missed that, who had just saved her, and if she should be insulted by the fact that she'd needed saving or not when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

Her eyes opened, her warm brown gaze settling on him. The glow to her hands had dissipated the second he'd shown up, which was good considering she didn't want people to know she had powers. After all how many fire manipulating red heads were in Astaria City? She didn't need people easily figuring out she was Torch. Getting arrested again wasn't part of her plan.

"I'm..." she trailed off, her mind still processing what had happened. And... Wasn't he from Aegis? His face looked familiar but she wasn't entirely sure if that's where she recognized him from.

She smiled in relief and reached forward, tucking some strands of her hair behind her ear. "I'm fine, thanks to you."

345 ● Timothy Smith ● Hope this works!

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[Timothy Smith]

Tim breathed a sigh of relief when she said she was fine. He reached out and took her hand, giving it a good shake.

"Good, good. That was a close call. My name's Tim. Timothy Smith. Sometimes I go by Surge, but I'm off duty today. Look over here please?"

He held one hand up, and with the other extended his index finger and made the tip of it shine a bright light and passed it back and forth over the woman's eyes, watching her pupils dilate.

"Okay good. I didn't think you were in shock but now I'm sure."

He pointed to the headphones. "Very nice, but you might think about something with just a little less noise cancellation. I mean, I thought the "oh no they're wearing air pods" meme was funny but when it happens in real life.... yeah, not so much. I've got some earbuds, but I'm stubborn and haven't upgraded to bluetooth so they do get tangled pretty easy, but I can leave one ear out."

He was starting to ramble. Really, he was just happy to have someone to talk to. Alice was "busy," she said something about a motorbike? Ivan and Seb both had work, and so did most of his Aegis coworkers. He couldn't just go lock himself in either of his labs, because Alice had locked both of them for a full 24 hours.

It had only been two.

He glanced at his watch, noticed this fact, and sighed, shook his head, then looked back at the woman. "Sorry, what did you say your name was again? I'm horrible with names."

Adara Chase

[Adara Chase]

we'll be raising our hands

shining up to the sky

'cause we got the fire

❧

Adara cocked an eyebrow when he said his name then his codename then that he was off duty. None of which was information she actually cared about. It didn't matter whether some Aegis lackey was off or on duty so long as she wasn't currently trying to steal something, which she wasn't. Though being saved by him ]was a bit embarrassing.

She huffed, trying to swallow her pride. At least he was cute. He clearly had that going for him.

"Everyone knows who you are," she stated, despite the fact that she hadn't been able to place his name earlier, rolling her eyes before going along with his little medical test. "Unless someone's living under a rock."

She lightly laughed at his advice. It was true, there were negative side effects to cancelling out the world around her. But she quite enjoyed having nothing but her music to listen to.

"Maybe I'm immortal," she said in a joking tone that made it obvious she was anything but that. She wished she was. Her job would be far easier if she didn't have to worry about a trigger happy cop.

She studied Tim for a moment, cocking her head to the side. He seemed distracted, rambling, his mind possibly elsewhere, possibly in multiple places at once. He looked like her when she was stressing over a difficult upcoming heist. Then his eyes were on her again and he asked about her name. She grinned.

"I didn't," she replied teasingly. There was no malice in her tone but it made it clear that she was playfully not going to make this easy for him. She liked to keep people on their toes, keep them guessing. There was a brief pause before she gave him the cheekiest grin she could muster.

"My name's Adara Chase."

302 ● Timothy Smith ● Such a flirt~

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + GS

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[Timothy Smith]

To anyone looking at Tim right now, it would seem like his superpower was obliviousness. His eyes grew wide and he immediately started talking a mile a minute, not even realizing that the popped stitches from earlier had made his wound start to bleed again and was slowly staining his shirt. It wasn't a lot, and it wasn't too concerning, but it was still bleeding again.

"You're immortal? That's amazing! I know and have seen people who can heal from all sorts of injuries but never someone who is actually immortal like can come back from death and stuff, that's fascinating! What sort of stuff have you come back from? Obviously you've probably been hit by a car or something like that before, this didn't faze you at all so... wait..."

Right about then was when Tim processed the tone that Adara had had when she said that.

"Oh. Oh you're not really... Yeah um, sometimes... Yeah I can be an idiot. Anyway. Nice to meet you Adara."

Tim put out a hand to shake hers, and then noticed his watch.

Twenty-one hours, forty-five minutes before Alice would let him back into the lab.

"Are you busy? Do you want to go do something? I'm... It's... I haven't had a day off in *years* and I don't know what to do with myself and all my friends are working. We could get food? See a movie? Check out the museum? Actually I haven't been to the museum in ages, that might be fun.. We could get to know each other a little better, I'm always down for making a new friend. Plus it will help keep me from going insane."

Day saved? Check. New friend? Check. Something to occupy the time until he could get back to work? Also check. Maybe. Hopefully she'd say yes.

Adara Chase

[Adara Chase]

we'll be raising our hands

shining up to the sky

'cause we got the fire

❧

She blinked when he started talking fast, seeming to not notice her earlier sarcasm. She cocked an eyebrow at him, letting him ramble on, noticing the fact that he was bleeding - she thought he should really get that looked at - and just waited for him to realize she wasn't actually immortal.

Once he did, she playfully rolled her eyes.

"You're not just an idiot," she said in a lighthearted tone to let him know she wasn't actually insulting him, "You're also bleeding." She pointed to the slowly growing stain on his shirt.

She shook his hand, noticing the way his eyes went to his watch. He was obviously either in a hurry or waiting for something. Or maybe he just wanted to get away from her. He seemed nicer than that but she knew niceness could hide venom underneath rather easily.

But then he asked if she wanted to hang out with him. Her eyebrows rose, eyes widening with a small look of surprise. She wasn't sure him saving her life made them automatically friends but she decided she could always fry him with fire if he got too clingy.

So she did what any good, brand new friend would.

She smirked, cocked an eyebrow, and said in her best teasing voice, "Do you ask all the women you save out or am I special?"

227 ● Timothy Smith ● God it's so short...

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + GS

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[Timothy Smith]

"Hm? I'm... ah shoot."

Tim looked down at his shirt, noticing the stain. "Crap. I must have pulled some of the stitches. Hold on, I think... yeah I have a new bandage, that should take care of it."

Tim found a bench, took off his shirt, and started to switch out the bandage on his shoulder. He didn't even think about what people might think, seeing him take his shirt off in public. He *really* didn't know how to operate well when he wasn't working.

"See, this thing here is the whole reason I'd like to hang out. I got shot on the job, so I'm on forced medical leave for at least today, all of my other jobs are keeping me from working too, so I'm taking the first day off I've had in... four years? Maybe three, but I'm pretty sure it's four. But I don't know what to do with myself. I swear I'm going insane."

Right about then was when more of her question impacted Tim. "Not that you aren't special! he hurriedly corrected himself, "I mean you are! You're the person I saved on my first day off in years, and you seem nice and friendly and you're definitely pretty so I just was figuring that we could hang out and be friends and keep me from going insane because I apparently don't know how to relax."

He finished changing the bandage and pulled his shirt back on, noting the stain as he did so.

"Maybe I should get a new shirt too. This one's a little... something. I'd come up with a pun but honestly I'm having trouble focusing without work."

Adara Chase

[Adara Chase]

we'll be raising our hands

shining up to the sky

'cause we got the fire

❧

This man was clearly a disaster, she decided. A good looking disaster but still a disaster. She stood there as he took his shirt off, cocking an eyebrow and admittedly looking him up and down before she managed to pull her eyes away. At least Aegis seemed to keep their heroes in shape.

"Aegis should really look into getting a healer," she said, her voice casual. "I'm surprised you guys haven't recruited one." She'd heard rumors about a healer working out of one of the hospitals so surely if she, a villain, had heard of this healer, Aegis must have?

She found her eyebrow rising again when he said he was forced to take medical leave. Didn't most people enjoy getting time off from work? Oh God, he was probably a workaholic. That, well, it wasn't a good thing because she didn't think it was healthy to be a workaholic. It just meant he clearly needed someone in his life to teach him how to have fun.

Her cheeks darkened when he called her special. She cleared her throat awkwardly, not sure if he meant to compliment her or he was just saying it to say it. He didn't seem like the type of guy to compliment her only because he wanted something. But then again she'd just met him.

"Glad to know I am special," she replied, not commenting on him calling her pretty because her mind didn't really want to process that and get even more flustered.

"It's a little bloody," she said, gesturing to the shirt. "And you sound like you need a vacation. When was the last time you had fun? Work doesn't count."

278 ● Timothy Smith ● n/a

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + GS

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[Timothy Smith]

"I mean bloody would be the word if you want to be matter-of-fact and boring about it. Aegis does have a healer, but there's only so much she can do anymore. She's almost as old as Colonel, and apparently her abilities have faded with age."

When was the last time he had fun? That was... quite the question.

"Um, let me see, uh... I think that would have been... I think my birthday, no, wait, the night before my birthday. Uh, three or four years ago. I got really drunk. Apparently when I do that I... Um... I like to... Um... well damn. That doesn't count either because apparently drunk me likes to work too. I wrote an AI that night. So more work. Woo."

He thought a little while longer. Did that incident in high school count? No, he did that in part to collect data for an experiment. So work. What about... no that had work as an ulterior motive too.

"I... I can't remember. I can't remember the last time I did something fun that wasn't work. I don't think that's a good thing."

He jumped up off the bench and grabbed her hands. "I have an idea. I saved you, you save me. Save me from work. Because apparently the last time I had fun outside of work was when i was four or something because I can't remember a time when I did something fun just for the sake of fun that didn't have some kind of ulterior work motive to it."

Adara Chase

[Adara Chase]

we'll be raising our hands

shining up to the sky

'cause we got the fire

❧

Perhaps she should have paid more attention to anything he said about Aegis. But so far nothing seemed like information she could use to her advantage as a thief so it just went over her head.

"I've always preferred being matter-of-fact," she replied with a playful smirk. She only liked being cryptic when it was fun or as Torch when it aided in keeping her identity secret.

She held back a grimace when it was clear all this guy did for fun was work. Of course it was nice to have a job you genuinely enjoyed doing but she didn't think that should come at the expense of a social life and actual non-work-related fun.

Wait did he say he created an AI? But those didn't exist... Right? She was fairly certain that AIs were just found in science fiction and weren't a reality yet. Apparently she was wrong. That... Well she didn't think she had time to unpack all of that.

"You really need a social life," she said teasingly, "If you're asking a stranger to show you how to have fun. Buuut..." She trailed off, dragging the word. She had been heading to the museum and still needed to stake it out. And if she was there with Aegis' poster boy... Surely no one would expect her to be up to no good.

"I was heading to the museum," she explained, putting on her most charming smile. "Y'know before you saved my life."

245 ● Timothy Smith ● n/a

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + GS

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