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Wearing a Flag on Your Head; Tag: Joseph
Topic Started: Jul 11 2013, 01:46 PM (315 Views)
Captain Britain
Unregistered

Date: July 10th
Time: Mid-evening, around 6pm




The sheer budget involved in even the smallest aspects of military life often shocked civilians. The US Navy had once spent $400 on an ashtray for a submarine, NASA spent hundreds of thousands in research funds in order to develop a pen which could write in space when the Soviets just used pencils. Upon closer inspection, there was almost always a good reason for such spending. Submarine ashtrays were so expensive because they were designed to break into large pieces so that, in the event of smashing, broken glass in such a contained environment did not become a substantial problem. Whilst the Soviet usage of pencils at first glance seemed to be a triumph of common sense over frivolity, pencils shavings and graphite dust in zero-gravity quickly became dangerous to the delicacy of the electronics. Despite most of these overpriced novelties ultimately turning out to be overpriced necessities, Brian did somehow suspect that SHIELD’s specific development of a kettle which was connected to the Helicarrier’s computer systems so as to ensure water boiled at the correct temperature regardless of altitude was more frivolous than one could really imagine. Brian waited for the water to settle in the kettle then poured it straight onto the tea bag in his cup, let it brew and then threw away the tea bag. It was good Yorkshire tea, one of the benefits of the astonishing amount of STRIKE agents now resident on what he liked to think of as soon becoming HMS Helicarrier.

Still recuperating after his run in with Namor, Brian had been dragged reluctantly from field work. Whilst earlier in his career the connection between injury and time spent away from the action he loved so much had been one which he’d not been prepared to accept, over time his maturity had increased. One couldn’t always be out in the middle of things. Much as the greatest professional footballers would rather take six matches sitting on the sidelines in Armani frowning at the manager, so too would Brian rather allow himself to fully recuperate than risk further damage the next time he did get hurt. It was a pity that he invulnerability did not come pre-packaged with a healing factor. He supposed that evolutionary leaps forward sometimes worked somewhat logically, and his body had assumed rather logically that a mere scientist as he had been at the time wouldn’t go putting himself into any situations where his invulnerable form would be hurt enough to need a healing factor. It was more fool him for being such a bloody idiot as to get so hurt, he imagined. Brian had spent the past couple of days on the phone to various contacts in British military intelligence and the government, catching them up on affairs and making sure that no one was being overly reticent concerning their disclosure of information necessary to security. With his sudden abundance of downtime, Brian had enjoyed catching up on the scientific literature which he had lacked the time to peruse in the busy preceding month. Whilst he still felt like he’d been brought off pitch in the middle of the game, it was not so bad.

The use of sports metaphors was not wholly nonsensical. Sports were on Brian’s mind a great deal of late. His mood, darkened by his injuries after being battered by the fish-man, had been considerably increased after the victory of Andy Murray at Wimbledon. A British champion at the All-England last, needless to say it buoyed a patriotic spirit like Brian. Today, though, Brian was listening to the rather more difficult struggles of the England cricket team as they played their way through the Ashes. His hopes for a spectacular Summer of Sport like the year before seemed to be rapidly dwindling, with Wiggins out of the Tour de France and Australia romping home alarmingly well. Brian sat down with his cup of tea and his laptop in the break room of the Helicarrier, which seemed to be abandoned at present, running BBC Radio 5 as the cricketers returned from their lunch (time zones made listening an odd experience).

Glancing up as another presence entered the room, Brian was pleasantly surprised to see a fellow STRIKE Agent. Which he was glad of, as he didn’t want to keep explaining how cricket worked. Joseph Chapman, the other agent who wore a flag on their head, one who quite avoided the type of superheroics which Brian engaged in. The two had never, to Brian’s mind, met before, or at least not in any specific fashion. The occasional dinner at which the both of them had attended, perhaps a brief shared word, but no great personal interaction. Joey had served in Iraq, Brian in Afghanistan, Joey had been on security detail at events where Brian had been the guest of honour. All the same, he felt a kin with the man. Chapman’s reaction to him seemed aversive, but Brian in his good mood chose to ignore it. “Hello.” He offered to Joseph, cheerfully. “Agent Chapman, right?” Brian had encountered one of the oldest Union Jacks once or twice, they’d been his greatest inspiration in becoming Captain Britain. “The kettle’s just boiled.” They both wore British flags on their faces, and were strangers in a strange land. What was to be done but to offer tea?
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Union Jack
Unregistered

Sweat sleeked over the back of his neck, damp perspiration born from a demanding seven hours in the humidity of the East Coast, slithering its way down the man's spine, soddening the back of his shirt. The skin of his complexion pinker than its normal golden hue thanks to those hours served under the mask of Union Jack, searching for answers that wouldn't yield. More dead ends that granted no reprieve from the disappointment of countering the threats that brought him to foreign soil. This day however seemed especially queer for the Englishman, his operations with a small task force had taken him into the industrious quarter of Bristol with Croydon only up the road, it was as if the world was conspiring to mock him for being in the U.S. when all the more lately the operative felt that he should be home. Back in Britain. Homesickness brought on perhaps by the fallout of frustrations at not being able to quickly complete the assignment his duty demanded and certainly hindered by the guilt and profitless rewards that this voyage to the other side of the pond had wrought. The Illuminati were incessant, and the search for Brian Falsworth thus far, ineffectual. Though the capture of Jacqueline brought some semblance of fortune, that triumph gave life to new problems that Joey had yet to conquer. Running a hand through the lanky fringe of his damp brown locks, Joey exhaled a weary sigh, the only silver lining on a tumultuous and fraught day, being the test against the Aussies starting at Trent Bridge.

Being the man he was, sport was second nature to Joey. Active and athletic by nature, professional and recreational sport, especially football and cricket went hand in hand. A lifetime ago, he'd've dreamed of wearing the number ten for the mighty West Ham United, now he'd more than certainly settle for watching the claret and blue on the box or reliving childhood fancies in a game of five-a-side that his former S.T.R.I.K.E. comrades used to group together for over in Shoreditch. Away from England, sport continued to serve as an anchor to a place he was now removed from and help displace any lingering longing. A phone call back to Kent would see him sat, chatting for ages with his father regarding the implications of Andy Carroll's fifteen million pound move south to the Hammers, his father a Scouser, the pair nattering in great detail of what it'd mean to the cockney boy's push for a top six finish, and how Liverpool would continue to scarper the talent they had once wielded. Following the triumphs of Murray at Wimbledon and then Froome and Cavendish in France, now Joey couldn't wait to get stuck into the Ashes series in order to fill those hours of quiet in an alien world the conflicted Englishman hadn't yet properly adapted to.

Operating within S.H.I.E.L.D. was certainly a challenge, acclimatising to the United States itself a task, let alone mingling with men and women that though united within a singular cause weren't quite what the Kent-born Union Jack was used to. Being told that people loved his 'Dick Van Dyke' accent was quickly getting tiresome, having to stomach biscuits and gravy fowl, and if someone said the term 'soccer' with Joey in earshot, he wasn't sure if he'd be able to hold onto the silent ire he was wrestling with. Another fine thing the poncy Oxforder idiots had given the world. The word 'soccer'. It grated every British-born working-class lad whenever the word was uttered, not least because football, the most popular of British sports and invariably known as the sport of the common people, should never have been allowed to be bastardised by the toffs. With the long day now rooted behind, Joey hoped the rec-room he was heading for might be quiet enough for him to grab a brew, find the BBC channel on one of the big screens and sit back and catch up on the day's highlights from Trent Bridge whilst avoiding anyone asking about the many rules of cricket, and why they called the series 'Ashes'. Considering the fact, if Joey were to pick holes in their reasoning, then of all the things to question, why could they not comprehend his own disdain with their insistence of using the term 'World Series' when only one sodding country played the game!

It's rounders for Pete's sake!

Ducking his head through the door as he stepped inside, Joey's shoulders dropped as he noticed one particular operative within the rec-room. Captain Britain. A man Joey had spent a fair few years avoiding, given their surreal and worldly different introduction. Eliciting a quiet groan under his breath whilst his feet found their way further inside, the Englishman kept his distance as Braddock called over. Nodding, Chapman was as ever cool with his response. "Cap, sir." Unable to shake the lingering callous feeling within, the young Englishman again nodded at the mentioning of the kettle being boiled and was only too happy to seek retreat from any conversation as he made for the counter where the pot sat steaming. "Cheers." Taking a mug and not thinking about the clip around the ear his nan would give him for pouring tea into the oversized tumbler instead of a proper cup, Joey quietly made himself a much needed brew. Milk, then tea-bag, wait to brown then hot water, and add two sugars, Joey stirred the darkening liquid before he noticed the clapping of what sounded like a cricket match. Drawing his interest immediately the agent glanced back to Brian sat at his laptop. "What's the score?" Joey asked, putting aside his own personal distance between he and Braddock. After all, it was the Ashes.
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Captain Britain
Unregistered

Joey’s first word to him earned him a mild twitch of the head, not precisely a shake, but an instinctive reaction to the nickname, a twitch which Brian couldn’t even really control. He didn’t dislike the name, as such, but he was not especially keen upon it. “It’s Brian, please.” He replied, smiling good-naturedly, not a demand, more a self-deprecating response. Whilst he was technically a captain in the British Army, it was more an honorary position than a real military one as he had been far more involved with STRIKE than he had the military, and during his time fighting alongside British troops in Helmand he had always served more as a NCO, fighting alongside the men themselves, than in the command position that the title captain denoted. With most people it was not a problem, but Joey had been a soldier himself. Besides, he was more than just a codename. Out of uniform, sipping a cup of tea in the Helicarrier’s kitchen, a strange fusion of the futuristic spy-agency that they were and the mundane office kitchen which it was clearly intended to be, Brian was not Captain Britain. Besides which, the shortening made him think of the other Cap who was possibly around on the Helicarrier, and there was no way that Brian could ever dream of living up to a hero like that.

Watching as the fellow patriotic hero made up his tea, Brian was reminded of something that he had once read about how the three different classes, the three-tiered great and storied social castes of Britain who couldn’t be knocked down no matter how the Blairites had tried, made their tea differently. Tea was a serious business in Britain. George Orwell, the greatest patriotic literary voice of the 20th century and a true British hero if Brian could name a single one, had written a long and well-remembered essay on the subject, and so too for that matter had those latter-day Orwells Douglas Adams and Neil Gaiman. When Brian had been studying at Cambridge, his tutor had kept a copy of the instructions Orwell wrote framed on the wall above his kitchen so as to ensure that no one ever made it wrong. The working classes, the coal miners and the factory workers and the like, drank their tea brewed strong, bag in cup, water straight from the kettle, with milk and sugar. The upper classes also drank straight from the kettle, though they would drink loose tea, and sometimes with lemon. The middle classes, in emulation of the upper classes but never quite managing to perform a perfect imitation, would usually drink Earl Grey or one of those other disgusting and pretentious blends that no one on Earth really liked. Brian drank ordinary tea, without milk or sugar. That way all you got was the taste of tea.

It was for this reason that, watching Joey make up a cup of milk-and-sugar tea, it occurred to Brian that they were almost precise inverse of each other. Patriots from opposite ends of the spectrum, in class and attitude and even power. Then again, Brian remembered another dark-haired bloke he’d met from the working classes who he was now proud to call his best mate. The old divides were dissolving, and Brian couldn’t be happier about it. Looking up from the radio, where he’d been busily trying to imagine the look of the Oval, Brian responded with the score. Australia were pulling ahead thanks to the freakish abilities of their youngest player, the highest test debut for a Number XI in the history of the game, as the eleventh man frequently didn’t score as highly as the other players. England were still well on track, as this was only the first day of many days, the first test of many tests, that the team would have to complete. Given his recent beating, Brian had to admit that their pluck was somewhat admirable and inspirational.

“When did you get here?” Brian asked Joey, casually, making conversation. There was something deeper there, though, Brian steadily canvassing opinion, trying to gauge whether or not Joey was a man it was worth working with, or whether he might be heading back off to Britain shortly, here in America solely as a courtesy call.
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Union Jack
Unregistered

"Sorry sir, old habits." Joey carefully avoided the utterance of 'Brian', it indicative of silent concerns and disassociations the common-born Englishman had formed once he had become the other British 'hero'. Sure there'd been on occasion a few briefly shared words since Joseph was adopted into the ranks of Britain's Intelligence Service. Their early infrequent interactions were normally brief and pragmatic, much to Joey's preferences as the junior British operative. And he very much was the junior between the pair, yet jealousy had no place in Joey's relationship with Brian. That standoffishness wasn't born from social statuses and contrasting upbringings. Brian and Joey were chalk and cheese when it came to their childhood, they had arisen to their place within S.T.R.I.K.E. and now S.H.I.E.L.D. in very distinct ways, hard graft and determination for the commoner, intelligence and aptitude for the nobleman, and Joey would freely admit that even now, Braddock was a likeable chap all things considered. Not what Joey would find standing on the Chicken Run, but still politely approachable and friendly. Instead, Joey's reservation lie in the distrust of the man known as Captain Britain, having seen what many in this world would not dream of.

A man capable of terrorising his country's people that he was supposed to protect. The World Without Xavier was a vicious and savage place, an experience that Joseph endured first hand, and was witness to many atrocities that he had since become exceptionally guarded of sharing. Dangers so very real, that there was still a chance of it materialising back in this world. It no less effected the soldier much like those early days of experiencing true combat, where the adrenaline has such a grip on your heart you feel it drumming in your ears as the body fights its instincts with natural countermeasures. Brian in that world, whilst clearly not himself, was something to be afraid of. The malicious extremities Braddock had adopted, still able to touch Joey's fears that to this day, even though both found themselves on the same side, carrying the same honour of performing their duty to country, Chapman was reluctant to ever broach that offhanded indifference. Things that though Brian had no memory of, Joey was likely never going to be able to let go.

Taking a slow sip of the warm beverage he had made, eyes lifting over the brim of the cup, looked upon Brian and then the radio, feet lining up one after the other, wanting to close some distance between he and the object so as to hear the latest from Trent Bridge as Brian gave insight into the score. It wasn't good but it wasn't terrible. "First day jitters." He muttered, surmising as he lowered the mug and focused on listening in to the commentator. There was a long way to go, given they were only on the first day of the first test. Australia was always going to be up for the game, and in front of the home crowd, the English were always likely to choke. Hell they never normally did well in the first test against the Aussies. But on the second day, those nerves'd be gone, and the upstart Australians would then need to rely on their skill instead of their tenacity. Then quality would shine through and that was when the English middle order would make a telling difference. The first three for the Aussies were strong, but get past the forth and their lack of depth would eventually be their undoing. They couldn't rely on a performance like Agar's in every innings and they didn't have a bowler like Jimmy Anderson.

Musings of cricket however were halted however as Brian spoke again, his gaze lifting to the figure, as surprise hinted at his brow for a fraction of a second as both rose into his fringe, not sure what to say at first as he sheepishly shrugged, "I've been here since May. Sir." He responded. Finding it oddly unusual that neither S.T.R.I.K.E. nor S.H.I.E.L.D. had informed Captain Britain, Union Jack couldn't help but feel a touch of humour in that fact. "Jay-Ay-See placed orders in April. Mind you, I've been kep' mostly busy since arrivin'. Several ops in accordance with the current' situations along the east coast, mostly reccy and deterrents. I haven' had much down time for taking i'easy. Tha's probably why you haven' seen me." Taking another sip of his tea, Joey hid his expression behind the mug as he glanced back to the radio.
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