Ace's exaggerated response to the elbow isn't quite a pratfall but he certainly takes a big mouthful of the scenery. He pairs that with a warm smile. It has seemed too easy, their old rhythm, and he does need something before he can go back to just being solid reliable Ace operating in tandem with her, rarely even needing to discuss their plans. But this, this is family, this is home.

"Lucky is one word for it."

"I get it. I'm late to the party and a lot of people would kill for my problems. So you know, status quo."

After the self deprecating quip, though, he shifts on the crate he is using as a makeshift seat and bounces his hands in front of him in the universal gesture for 'focus up.'

"I guess I'm just realizing how different things really are. I still feel like me. This is a natural evolution of the direction I was headed before. But the game really has changed in ways I just haven't had a chance to process "

The uncertainty of that isn't making him distressed, but it has etched away at some of his formerly unshakeable confidence. Only a little, but enough that to someone who knows him as well as Stacia it is glaring.

"I guess I'm just not really sure how doing that is going to go, and we aren't exactly in the safest of situations. So I need you to know that and to calibrate for it. I'll do my best and odds are it will be fine, but keep an eye on me, yeah?

And maybe we should talk strategy and exchange info a little more often. I'm still in it with you for the long haul, but I don't know how much of what I used to do by instinct came from me and how much came from... whatever it was."