#mercedes.threads

Moments like this have Outis considering if selling her soul to Valerian is actually a better alternative. The notion is always easily dissuaded, since it’s just a brief moment of poignant bafflement as she goes through the motions of fulfilling a request no matter how utterly bizarre it is. At least, if she had taken the Valerian offer, she would probably be doing harder work than just fetching a skateboard from the Badatnam Skate Park’s lost and found. But then again, it would also come with endless press and media attention, as well as having to deal with office politics and corruption (probably, she has no proof but a company as large as Valerian must have a dark side to it, it’s show biz babey and all that), as well as having to sell her image and identity for the amusement of the people she is supposed to be protecting. 

So not worth it at all, even if her work in BYOH means that she has to travel all the way from Liberty Glens to The Bronx in the subway while in costume. Mercedes is visible enough when out and about as Outis, but she is not well-known, so she does tend to draw the eye and get people pointing at her, wondering if she is a steward or just shady as hell. Which, she can’t exactly deny, considering her steward outfit consists of military cargos, a leather jacket and a Winter Soldier sort of mask getup. If people weren’t so used to stewards dressing in all shapes and forms,  she is sure someone would have called the cops on her by now. And that would have been awkward. 

She is lucky people have been desensitized to weirdness, even if she wishes some would be more aware and stopped with their whole “hero chasing” routine, since that tends to put them in more danger than not. 

Turning into the skatepark, she glances around and sighs. Yeah, she has never been here, so she has no clue where anything is. Quickly, she finds the nearest person — a woman with dark hair looking towards the skaters, with a skateboard next to her —  and taps her shoulder politely. 

“Excuse me, sorry for bothering you, but could you tell me where the park’s lost and found is?”

The thing about secret identities and aliases is that it’s not for everybody. She gets that, and realizes that sometimes the visibility of having an alias tied together so closely to their civilian identity can be helpful. Still, when acting as Outis, Mercedes does prefer the anonymity of wearing the mask, and she can’t help but feel a level of approval around those who do the same. It does seem to be the sort of approval that she doles out at random, considering how she is also fond of some fellow stewards that would not know nor claim anonymity even if it bit them in the ass and demanded they use it. Still, there is no denying the sense of approval every time she runs into Fuli163, accompanied with the usual wave of amusement as the bandages used as a mask. 

“Hello there,” she calls out from where she is sitting in the fire escape, feet kicking back and forth in the air as she presses herself forward into the railing and raises a hand to wave at him emphatically, making sure he sees her before she drops her arm and moves to stand up, slowly extricating herself from the railing and stretching as she goes. Once she is standing up, she places a hand on the railing once more and vaults over it, her other hand snapping to grab a nearby window still to slow her momentum and so on, slowly making her way to fall next to him with a little bounce in her step. 

“Coming back from a job or going towards one?” She asks, head tilting in question in an exaggerated manner. By now, she has learned to over-emote, since having a full face mask makes it harder for people to read her body language, and at the end of the day, it is best to make sure there are no misunderstandings from the beginning. Otherwise, trouble is bound to happen. “Watch out for the Cleaner, either way. Last I saw him, he was taking the Q Line and was dressed in a dark navy maintenance uniform, I think. Had a baseball cap and everything. Very non-descript, unfortunately.”