He doubted that the food he’d brought from Earth was still warm by the time he got to Mistral, but hey, if Mistral didn’t have a magical space microwave in her wonder, then Babylon would take off his cape and eat it. Anyway, he headed downstairs to the knight quarters and greeted the very enthusiastic dog that met him at the elevator. “Yes! Hello! You’re such a good boy, I brought you something, too, just a minute. Hey! Anabel!”
Babylon crossed the room, dog hot on his heels. “I brought some stuff from that gluten-free place you like. Tempura and stuff.” He set the bag down on a lab table, taking a moment to dust snow from it. “Might need some reheating. It’s snowing… as usual. Anyway.”
He pulled off his gloves and reached into the bag, then flipped a biscuit to Mendel. “I brought Aleksy’s old passport and all the information we’ve got about his new identity, name and address and stuff? Probably easiest for him to just go ahead and make him a naturalized citizen, but I don’t know how workable that is for you.”
“But food first,” Babylon added, placing the passport on the table.
Sosostris
“You’re going to regret that when the morning comes,” said Mistral, who set aside her current project to shift her attention to Babylon’s offerings. “I can’t exactly read the data charts left behind, but I bet you Menachem had a summer-weight uniform. I bet you the broccoli tempura.” This was easy because she didn’t even like broccoli. She opened the take-out container and dug in appreciatively--her apartment in her wonder was comfortable, for short periods of time, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to pass up and opportunity to eat food that wasn’t prepared in a microwave. Even if it was cold. It still crunched, and that’s all she wanted from tempura anyway.
She pulled her glove off one hand and flipped open the passport with the other. “Do you know if he wants me to keep the travel log the same? It shouldn’t hurt him, like, generally speaking--it’ll probably help it all seem more natural--and does he want the original passport back or can I use it as a base? I can just do an American passport if he doesn’t mind losing his Russian citizenship…”
Mistral paused, her mouth full of sweet potato, when she reached the information page. “What did you say his name was, before?”
She pulled her glove off one hand and flipped open the passport with the other. “Do you know if he wants me to keep the travel log the same? It shouldn’t hurt him, like, generally speaking--it’ll probably help it all seem more natural--and does he want the original passport back or can I use it as a base? I can just do an American passport if he doesn’t mind losing his Russian citizenship…”
Mistral paused, her mouth full of sweet potato, when she reached the information page. “What did you say his name was, before?”
“I didn’t say,” Babylon said, reaching for the broccoli tempura, which he’d counted on eating from the moment he left the restaurant with it. “But it was Irinei. Why?” He frowned, but resisted reaching for the passport - Mistral could be very particular when she was reading, after all. Had Aleksy somehow given him someone else’s passport?
“I don’t think he cares about losing his Russian citizenship,” he added, mostly as an afterthought - he wasn’t really sure Mistral had even brought that up as a question, or if she had just been thinking outloud. “He’s going to be posing as… I don’t know, some relative of Iouri Spektor - the museum director? They worked it out. It’s in the file. Some kind of brother or cousin or something. Anyway, summer weight uniform, probably? But I haven’t seen it.”
He paused. “Okay, you are going to stare a hole in that passport and it’s making me nervous.”
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Naturalized citizen then. Awesome. She bit the ends of her chopsticks, worrying at them with her teeth as she considered the conundrum in front of her. “The name I have here is Irina Valentinovna Lazareva,” she said, carefully. “Says he’s a woman.” She offered him the passport, in case he wanted to see proof. “It’s going to be replaced anyway, but--you said he forgot his civilian memories? Like, all of them?”
Babylon leaned over to look at the passport, just because - hey, it wasn’t the kind of thing he ran into every day? “Well,” he said, “It might say that, but he’s definitely a guy.” And then he sat down, because he felt like he was rubbernecking at something that was none of his business. And really none of Mistral’s, either, but here they were reconstructing Aleksy’s identity papers for him. “His new papers should probably say he’s a guy?”
“Also, yes,” he added, “As far as anyone can tell. That is typically how Purification works. Incredibly specific memory loss. What are you getting at?”
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“Obviously,” she said, around the chopsticks. Then she picked up another half-moon of tempura and shoved it into her mouth. Talking around that now, she continued, “My point is, does he know he’s trans? Has anyone been getting him his hormones? I’m assuming he’s been on hormones. This picture doesn’t look like someone who hasn’t been on hormones. Like, someone needs to look at his medical records, Finn. Or someone is going to get a dysphoria knife to the nonfunctioning junk, and that someone probably doesn’t deserve it?”
She narrowed her eyes at Babylon, like he was personally responsible for this--and maybe he was. “I don’t have the sort of stuff I’d need to forge a medical record for him, either. You’d need a doctor. Or someone with a lot more money and experience than me.” Mistral flipped open the rest of the file and started sorting through it. “Someone has to tell him. I don’t speak Russian.”
She narrowed her eyes at Babylon, like he was personally responsible for this--and maybe he was. “I don’t have the sort of stuff I’d need to forge a medical record for him, either. You’d need a doctor. Or someone with a lot more money and experience than me.” Mistral flipped open the rest of the file and started sorting through it. “Someone has to tell him. I don’t speak Russian.”
Finn held up his hands, a universal gesture for either slow the ******** down or woah we’re dealing with a badass here, but, like, facetiously? “That is a lot of invasive questions to go asking someone neither of us knows particularly well about his junk,” he said, and besides, the answer to all of those things was no. Finn barely knew the basics of The Care And Keeping Of Amnesiacs when they didn’t have complicated medical needs. Like, s**t, what if Aleksy was allergic to things? They might accidentally kill him!
“Fortunately, this is also the reason we have Nick,” he added. Well, theoretically, they had Nick. Nick was currently in New Hampshire, along with his wife, and probably having a really good time doing absolutely nothing senshi related… but as a former Agent Of Darkness who was now well on his way to making a full recovery, he probably owed them a few favors? Or something.
Sighing, Babylon added, “I’ll talk to Iouri. Aleksy’s taken a real shine to him - probably because he’s the only person we have handy who speaks the same language as him? Anyway, stop looking at me like that, it’s not like I’ve had any reason to ask the guy to take off his clothes for me.”
Melanite, somehow, had found reasons to get Babylon to take off his clothes. But that was not really a conversation he was going to have with Mistral right now with everything else that was going on. “Just worry about the passport,” he sighed. “Iouri and I will figure out the medical stuff and we’re gonna be discreet about it.”
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“I take hormones,” said Mistral, flatly. That sort of s**t happened when the entirety of your reproductive system got crushed by a mountain. “Trust me. He shouldn’t be off them unless he already was.”
Was she being a b***h right then? Oh, definitely. It wasn’t her place to tell Finn about anyone else’s birth assignments, but at the same time--if someone could forget things as basic as their name, who was to say they remembered anything? Maybe Aleksy knew about his situation, and maybe he didn’t, and maybe he’d get pissed off that someone had outed him. She could take that anger. He probably didn’t want to go without whatever it was he’d had. “I’m going to reach out to some people my Uncle Steve knows,” she said. “We’ll get papers for Nick to sign as Aleksy’s attending doctor. Yeah?”
She set her food aside and picked up the polaroid from the file. “He’s cute,” she said. “Looks a lot like your Arkady, though. I’d think this was a picture of her except for the hair.”
Was she being a b***h right then? Oh, definitely. It wasn’t her place to tell Finn about anyone else’s birth assignments, but at the same time--if someone could forget things as basic as their name, who was to say they remembered anything? Maybe Aleksy knew about his situation, and maybe he didn’t, and maybe he’d get pissed off that someone had outed him. She could take that anger. He probably didn’t want to go without whatever it was he’d had. “I’m going to reach out to some people my Uncle Steve knows,” she said. “We’ll get papers for Nick to sign as Aleksy’s attending doctor. Yeah?”
She set her food aside and picked up the polaroid from the file. “He’s cute,” she said. “Looks a lot like your Arkady, though. I’d think this was a picture of her except for the hair.”
Okay, so she had a leg to stand on, medically, and Finn was being kind of a jackass - but the identity politics of it all was something that neither of them really had any place to comment on besides that he was pretty sure that outing people was wrong, no matter what the circumstances or what you were outing them about? “Okay, enough said,” said Finn, reaching for another piece of tempura like that was the end of the conversation. “We’ll take care of this in a minimally invasive way and we’ll take care of it quickly.”
“And yes, he is cute,” he agreed, and leaned over to look at the picture again. “He looks less like her in person. Maybe it’s just something weird with the glamours?”
Tate had had a cousin in St. Petersburg, he remembered… and decided not to get too far into that line of thought. It was just weird, and those parts of Aleksy and Arkady’s lives were closed doors to them. It wouldn’t mean anything now. “So I have a type and it’s Russian redheads who are taller than me. Who doesn’t go for that, though? Seriously.”
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“Glamors are weird in the first place,” said Mistral, in the tone of one who wasn’t going to accept any arguments. Then she leaned forward onto the counter and pulled the passport back her way. The weirdness of glamors was, in part, why she only transformed to go to her Wonder and ******** around with her projects here. “One day I’ll find out how it works.” And when she did, she would break the glamors, and everyone would have to sit down, shut up, and listen to her if they wanted them back…
That was the textbook definition of supervillainy. Who cared?
She arched an eyebrow at Babylon. “I don’t.” She tucked the paperwork back into the folders. “Anyway, don’t go ******** this amnesiac,” she said. “Just to be safe.”
That was the textbook definition of supervillainy. Who cared?
She arched an eyebrow at Babylon. “I don’t.” She tucked the paperwork back into the folders. “Anyway, don’t go ******** this amnesiac,” she said. “Just to be safe.”
You don’t really go for anyone, though, thought Babylon, but upon consideration that was kind of a d**k move, so he didn’t say it. But then again, she’d suggested he might ******** this amnesiac? Which, he was pretty sure Arkady would flip the ******** out on him, and he’d cheated on enough significant others to last a lifetime. “I am not going to ******** him!” he said defensively.
“Arkady would kill me,” he added, crossing his arms over his chest. “She would kill me dead. And no one would bring you tempura.”
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“I would cry,” she said, dryly. “So would Mendel. You spoil him.” The dog in question barked, a cheerful noise that nevertheless made her jump. It was only because he’d heard his name, she assured herself. “I thought I would make sure you knew, since…” Well, amnesiac wasn’t really his thing. Except that it was. Statistically. Two out of three of his sexual partners (that she knew of) had had some degree of memory problems.
She frowned. “Well. I need to get this going if you want this in a week.”
She frowned. “Well. I need to get this going if you want this in a week.”
She trailed off, and Babylon was glad that she did, because he didn’t want to know how she was going to qualify the need to have a lengthy conversation about Aleksy’s gender identity and the importance of not ******** the amnesiac. Probably that he’d ******** the last one.
He pressed his thumb and index finger to his forehead. “Okay,” he said, getting up. “I get it. You’ll never trust me again. Good to know.”
He gave Mendel one last scratch behind the ears before turning to leave. “Just drop me a line when it’s ready,” he added. “I can come here to pick it up or meet you somewhere in Destiny City.”
Well, he thought, as he waited for the elevator. This had been productive.
