THE TERM HERO IS RELATIVE

YELLOWSTONE, 1.04 "The Long Black Train"

NOBODY WANTS THIS (2024–) 1.04 Obliterated

"Oh yeah? Can I see what you're working on?" He moved closer, but still did it slowly, not wanting to overwhelm her. "It is pretty beautiful out here, can't like about that."

she couldn't ignore curiosity as to why he seemed so, she wasn't sure what to call it, overly friendly perhaps. she was a native new yorker though, things like pleasantries and strangers caring about each other always seemed to set off alarm bells for her. "you're lucky to live here. seems like a place you probably live longer than you do in the city."

And he wasn't just saying that to make conversation or be nice, there was a genuine tone to his words.

she was about to push her cart away in defeat when she recognized the other man in the aisle. he'd bought one of her paintings at the market. she took a moment, hoped she stopped visibly pouting and walked up to him. "it's nice to see you again. how's the painting?"

"i'll be fine until we're extracted," he insists the best he can, holding in a groan as pain shoots up the back of his arm. well that was new. he knows he's beat up good, it's just the details on the how that he's not exactly sure of right now. & he's not going to worry about it until they're safely flying away from this disaster & he knows alice is being taken care of. "if i remember right, there's an empty warehouse a couple blocks up. the roof should be good for a pickup."

alice listened to his plan and nodded, but then frowned. "yeah, but remember the road to it was blocked up." if it was bad then, it would certainly be impassible now with all the shooting and explosions. her guess was that about 2 city blocks had practically become a war zone. she felt bad at their minimal involvement. if they planned on rebuilding it, it would be a lot of cleaning out rubble. "we're gonna have to go around. i don't think either of us are in the position to be climbing over rubble right now." she didn't know how far that would be, but it added distance and unknown elements to their plan. "maybe we should figure out if i can walk before we get there."

He took a few steps closer, his gaze on the girl curious but nothing more than that. "So you're an artist? It can be kind of inspiring around here."

"yeah, i am. it's a hobby." she wasn't sure whether she really got to call herself an artist. she drew, she painted and she knew it wasn't bad, but she also wasn't professional either. "it is inspiring. it's really beautiful. i've never seen anything like it."

"the turtles---no, wait, tortoises, they're land based---were pretty cool. one of them was really big and really old. i got to feed it a piece of lettuce. that was nice." she didn't pet it, just to be sure; she didn't want to hurt it, after all. "i hope you get to go." a nod and then: "can't you pull that one emoji - the one with the doe eyes - and tell your boss you'd like to go on an assignment there or something?" then alice laughed, and khione laughed too: "i meant both, but dang, that must be annoying, getting flagged each and every single time."

"i gotta meet a tortoise sometime, it'd be like meeting a dinosaur," she gushed. then she shrugged saying, "yeah it sucks but i guess that's the price i pay. SHIELD is the reason i can travel so i'm complaining, but i'm also gonna put up with it." if she hadn't joined SHIELD she'd have probably been dead or in jail by now, so getting flagged coming in and out was a minor grievance in the grand scheme of things. khione was pretty astute about using her powers of doe eyed persuasion, or at least trying to. "you know, i really do try, but there has to be something going on that concerns us for us to get assigned abroad. anything that doesn't concern us is "meddling in foreign affairs"" alice laughed.

He paused to pull his wallet out of his pocket. "And how much for the painting?"

"fifty five dollars for the painting." she'd originally priced her work much lower, and still sometimes she felt like she was overcharging. it had actually been other artists at the market who had encouraged her to price her work higher.

KATHRYN NEWTON as MILLIE KESSLER FREAKY (2020) dir. by Christopher Landon

“ how bad are we talking? ”

"and then i just had to use the shampoo that makes me sneeze." she kept it in her duffle for a reason, but clearly she'd forgotten the downside of it. "what did i interrupt?"