A Bar at Fell's Point | Baltimore, MD | Tuesday Evening

[knife_bender]

Danny seemed to think that Diego and Steve couldn't spend any time together without burning something down, but he also encouraged them to go to Baltimore together alone, so if something did burn down whose fault was it really?

Nothing seemed to be on fire so far, they had beer and crabby fries (which was just french fries covered in crab dip). Look at them being adults and not starting fights. They were totally responsible.

"It's kind of cruel to make the bar area of this city the one place with cobblestone streets," Diego said, eyeing the wobbly girls in heels outside the window.

[Eating shit on the cobblestone at Fell's Point is a rite of passage for some of us. For one and NFB due to distance!]

Comments

[knife_bender]

"I can absolutely make you the same promise in return." Because his only tattoo was done under duress and needles now made him pass out.

[grenadesandohana]

"So that's a no on the matching BFFs tats?" Steve teased.

[knife_bender]

"That's a big no," Diego said. "I hate the one tattoo I do have."

[grenadesandohana]

"Yeah?" Steve said, snagging more fries. "How come?"

[knife_bender]

There was a pause as Diego debated whether telling the full truth or some story about a drunken mistake. He came to the conclusion that Steve likely wouldn't give him that annoying, fatherly look that Danny did whenever Diego shared some of his past.

He was also low on friends and figured lying to them wasn't a great way to maintain the relationship. See, he was learning.

"My dad made me get it when I was a kid," Diego said, lifting a hand at the waitress again for another beer.

[grenadesandohana]

Because Steve was a professional, he'd didn't aspirate on his fries because he had definitely been expecting something more along the lines of "it says kung pao pork on my back" than that. "So he wouldn't let you outside and he...got you tattooed," Steve said carefully.

If he came out a little like he meant to say "branded," well. "He sounds like a piece of work."

That was military for "giant asshole."

[knife_bender]

"Oh I'm pretty positive Annie is going to kill him one day." And if Annie hated someone you know it was bad.

[grenadesandohana]

"You seem real broken up about that," Steve teased. "I don't think Danny wants to kill Doris, but I don't think he'd mind at all if she fucked right on out of my life and never came back."

Doesn't everyone call their mom by their first name?

[knife_bender]

Diego wouldn't, but he loved his android mommy.

"Yeah, I haven't talked to my dad since I was seventeen," Diego said. "You might want to consider it."

[grenadesandohana]

"Oh, I thought she was dead until...last year," Steve said and oh, he needed more beer for this. "It was a whole thing."

[knife_bender]

"Uh, yeah, I'm sure it was," Diego said. "I would be pissed off if my dad died and then somehow came back."

Shh, nobody tell him.

[grenadesandohana]

Steve's new beer was not going to last very long. "She's a CIA operative and she faked her death to shake a member of the Yakuza. I'm pretty sure my dad--he died four years ago--only had a vague suspicion she wasn't on the up and up. I thought she was a school teacher with car trouble."

Hard to imagine where Steve's trust issues came from, huh.

[knife_bender]

...

"That's some screwed up shit."

Said the man whose birth name was Number Two.

[grenadesandohana]

Steve toasted him with his beer bottle. "Then she moved into my house. It was something."

[knife_bender]

"We have interesting families," Diego said. "That's the word I choose to use."

Because it sounded better than "dysfunctional" or "so screwed up they should have been in therapy since birth".

[grenadesandohana]

Steve literally needed the governor to order him to therapy in order to go.

"Extremely interesting," Steve agreed with a rueful snort. "Do you tell stories that you think are normal, look over and see Danny looking appalled?"

[knife_bender]

"Once I did it on purpose," Diego said with a laugh. "I told him I was raised by an intelligent chimp and my mom was an android and he immediately ended the conversation."

[grenadesandohana]

Steve burst out laughing. "And he says I have aneurysm face."

He took a sip from his beer. "Were you raised by a chimp and an android?"

Because that was easily the least messed-up part of either of their childhoods.

[knife_bender]

Diego nodded. "Yeah, Pogo's been at my dad's side forever and Dad created Mom to keep seven kids in line."

It really was the only positive from his childhood.

[grenadesandohana]

"The tattoo he made you get doesn't have a tracker in it, right?" Steve checked.

[knife_bender]

"No, but the house we lived in had about two hundred cameras in it," Diego said. "As soon as we left he took it as a betrayal and pretended we didn't exist, thank god."

[grenadesandohana]

"That's healthy," Steve commented dryly. "How many of you left?"

[knife_bender]

"Just Luther stayed," Diego said. "He's always been a suck up. Thinks the sun shines out of Dad's ass."

[grenadesandohana]

"Sorry," Steve said genuinely. "Guess you don't talk to him much either?"

[knife_bender]

"Oh none of us talk to each other," Diego said with a shrug. "I mean, I talk to Five now but I didn't talk to him for, like, sixteen years because I thought he was dead but it turns out he traveled into the future."

Do you see how easily he could break Danny's brain, Steve? Do you see?

"So I guess I sort of get that thing with your mom on some level 'cause it surprised the hell out of me when he showed up."