In a city as big as Denver, one could get lost just as easy as one could lose oneself, and Elliot didn't particularly care which came first. With a full hour passed since his self-extraction from the media feeding frenzy that enveloped the convention center, he'd managed to find for himself an ironic sort of peace in the industrious hubbub of downtown, resting his legs while only intermittently coming to a stop.  From his corner in the RTD tram car he peered, glassy-eyed, through the window at the storefronts and offices that slid past, giving a frequent glance at the myriad of people that came and went.  

To a degree it amused him that people would be engaging in the everyday hustle and bustle of life when a supervillain incident just occurred not too far away, but he knew that they couldn't afford not to.  No matter the nature of the hardship, life could not be put on pause until one felt ready for it.  Allowing pain, loss, or fear to hinder oneself—weakness, defiance of that all-important axiom of life: continuance.  [i]The show must go on.[/i]

Realizing that his leg had fallen asleep, Elliot uncrossed the both of them and shifted his position, making sure to prevent his overcoat's edge getting caught between the seats.  [i]What the heck am I going to do with my day?[/i] he wondered, not for the first time.  Whenever he began to give the issue any thought he always seemed to get distracted, delegating the decision-making to an ideally better-informed, but more realistically more-bored and less-comfortable future version of himself.  

The convention, if he remembered right, should have lasted all day and then some.  Thinking of the time he spent in there before the incident and then extrapolating that experience fourfold made him realize how thankful he really was for the Rockers' uninvited appearance.  Now, the world was his oyster—if the metropolis of Denver constituted the world.  Though full of problems, as any edifice of a flawed humanity would be, it struck Elliot as a pretty good place to be.

He felt the tram come to a stop, and heard the light tone that signified the doors opening. A large, hard-faced man in khakis and a dress shirt stomped over, with sunken eyes and prominent stubble. Standing close to the door, he took hold of one of the vertical bars, preparing for the tram to continue.  Elliot's eyes lingered on his face for a moment longer, taking in the aspect of a man who looked down on his luck.  What troubled him so?  Work?  Family?  The lack of one or both, and the feelings of worthlessness and failure that accompanied it?  If Morales were here, he might have been able to tell this man something that would make his day.

But Elliot was here.  

Nodding to himself, the young man picked himself up and strode straight off the tram, neither pausing to acknowledge the stranger nor watch to see if he took what he gave.  A moment later the tram pulled away, and the Ward stood before a bank of some sort.  Elliot did not recognize the spot where he ended up disembarking, but that suited him just fine.  Too much longer and the sun would be so overhead that using it to determine compass directions would be difficult -though not impossible for the Margrave, vaunted genius that he was- but Elliot could just make out which way the sun lay for now, so he took a path directly opposite to it.  Looking and feeling unusually chipper, he made tracks over the concrete sidewalk, past trash can and iron bench, scrawny tree and parking meter, until a corner restaurant caught his eye.  [color=8F9779]“Something of an early lunch,”[/color] he reasoned with himself as he moseyed right on in, [color=8F9779]“But my heroism is vast as my appetite, and a breakfast of coffee ill prepares a man for a day of adventure.”[/color]

A few minutes later, the enigmatic man of mystery, inimitable and indomitable as midnight itself, sat outside in a little wrought-iron chair at a little wrought-iron table, munching away at a hearty dish of fries coated in melted cheese and corned beef, with a side of pickles.