New York City Superior Court: Noon Recess

[x-polarisstar.livejournal.com]

Carter Blaire has a visitor. His visitor has a job to do. Malice lives up to her name and her parentage as she explains why she's there.



The rest of the courthouse was loud with lawyers and defendants and victims all bustling past each other. The courts had spilled out their inhabitants for the lunch rush and the press of people made it easy for a single slender woman to weave through unnoticed. Inside the courtroom, only a single lingering lawyer remained, packing up his briefcase and muttering to himself. He never even looked up to see her walk by.

The door behind the bench to chambers was locked but that hardly presented a problem. A simple twist of her hand sent the tumblers moving and she slipped inside, closing the door behind her and leaning against the wall with a small smile. Reaching up, she took off the hat that had covered her vividly colored hair and slid her sunglasses up off her face. "Judge Blaire, I presume?"

A salt and pepper eyebrow rose at that, the man looking up sharply at the sight of someone in the room with him, the ruffling of papers he'd been going through stopping suddenly. "That would be what the name plate on the desk says," he answered archly, setting down the sheet of paper he'd been in the process of separating from the stack on his desk and laying both hands flat on his desk. That she'd entered somehow was without question and he left that aside, knowing the door had been locked but that this was hardly a deterrent for anyone determined to walk in. "And you would be in my office because...?"

The metal nameplate caught the light as it lifted and floated to her waiting hands. She examined it with a faintly amused smirk then let it float back. "My father sent me." She explained and pushed away from the wall and stalked lazily over to stand in front of him, hip cocked to one side. "He doesn't think you're a very good judge."

A thin smile answered that, hiding nerves, though his eyes never left her, tracking her progress through the room, the nameplate hovering in his peripheral vision. Judges often had security alarms installed in their chambers, just in case. But calling in a guard against someone who could move objects at her will wasn't something Carter Blaire was willing to do for his own sake. "I see." Leaning back in his chair, he sighed, just a bit, though the smile never left his face.

She studied him calmly for a while, not in a hurry apparently. After a long silence, she shrugged and gave him a slightly wider smile. "It's odd. I've wondered about you. When she spoke of her father the judge, I had no idea that you were that father. She rather hates you, you know." Her hand rose to stroke along the strange silver necklace she wore, meditatively. "Unexpected bonus that. But I digress. So Your Honor, tell me, do you remember my father?"

He had no clue who the green haired woman was talking about. Neither the woman she was referring to, nor her father. But then again, in both his career as a lawyer and as a judge, he'd earned more than a few enemies of note over the years. "You'll have to be more specific. I'm afraid I have no idea who you're talking about. There's more than just one person who has it in for me," he said, bravado and irony tinting his voice. He'd thought it might go this way, someday. He'd never thought it would be so... soon, however. He managed to keep from looking at the picture on his desk, the new one which had been there for a few days only, an older family picture of a man and a woman, and two girls running around them both in a garden.

"Make a habit of sentencing mutants, do you?" She made a face, "No wonder Ali always refused to talk about you. Must have been rough on her." She leaned on the desk. "You sent my father to jail. A plastic prison that you arrogantly assumed would hold him. You don't even know what real power is." Neither had she. Not until she'd felt it herself. Been amazed by the strength and control of his gift.

Eyes widening, Carter Blaire stared ahead, one hand twitching slightly though he pressed it flat against the desk once more.

That.

He'd always wondered when that day would come back to haunt him. Even before Magneto has escaped, as so many of his colleagues had been convinced he would.

He didn't inform this woman, whoever she really was, that Alison had come to him. And that he'd already, in a way, made his amends there. Had somehow, just perhaps, set things right. There was a pang of regret at the thought that he might - would not - live to see that through, to actually experience the aftermath of that turning point, but at least he'd reached it, he thought dimly.

"Real power, as you call it, young lady, doesn't rest in one single person." Brave words spoken with belief though they covered the twisting fear in his gut. It was a cornerstone he'd always relied upon, that one. And it would likely be enough to trigger an unpleasant reaction.

People who thought they had power rarely liked being contradicted. Neither, a small corner of his mind added peevishly, did people who were insane.

He was afraid of her. Hiding it fairly well, but definitely afraid. She laughed when she realised it, green eyes crinkling in amusement. "Carter, may I call you, Carter? Did I say that? No, of course I didn't. I'm not telling you that power lies in one man. I'm simply explaining that you and all your kind are obsolete. You can continue to play your game, believe that you are in charge, try to control the mutant threat. But we are the future. Homo sapiens superior."

She smiled as she ran her hand through her hair, looking a bit distracted as she tried to remember where she'd been. There was something deeply entertaining about this. She understood why movie villains felt the need to posture and rant now. "You stole my father's wealth and his freedom. Initially, we considered doing the same. But then there was the matter of your daughter." Malice spread her hands in an ironic, helpless gesture. "You see, she wouldn't have allowed us to just walk away if we merely did to you what you did to Magneto. And murder...well, obviously that would have caused her to investigate. So we had to decide on a new plan."

A maniac with delusions of grandeur. Spouting the same biased and bigoted rhetoric Magneto had, while claiming to be discriminated against, all in the same breath.

"The case had nothing to do with mutants. A man broke the law and flouted society's conventions. Those were the only basic facts for which the case was judged." There was, he knew, no use in discussing this and expecting a reasonable or balanced reply, though. Nor, he thought, still keeping his hands firmly on the desk, any use in calling for help - no matter how badly he wanted to do so.

He did not want to die. But he did not want to drag anyone else into it either, nor the guards outside...

...nor his daughter, if it could be helped.

And then, the way the green-haired woman had phrased things caught his attention, and all regrets and fears aside, the man could not help but follow on it.

"Allowed you to just walk away?"

Malice's lips twisted into an unpleasant smile, "Yes. Even if she didn't have a disturbing loyalty to her family," green eyes rolled expressively, "she'd hardly be complacent about my involvement. So we work around that by leaving nothing for her to be upset by. You understand, just trying to prevent her from unnecessary excitement."

"Nothing for her to be upset about," he found himself repeating numbly, distantly thinking he had to be in shock to be reacting the way he was. Maybe the 'we' that Malice was referring to were making the same mistake he had. Or maybe not.

Either way, it didn't matter. So long as his family was safe, it just didn't matter.

She smiled more broadly, a warm, bright smile like you'd give to a child who had done well on a test. "You're being very good about this. I thought I'd have a much more difficult time of it, begging, bargaining...you know. Obviously I've just seen too many movies." Her tone sounded genuinely pleased. "I don't suppose there is anything you'd particularly like anyone to know? I can't guarantee I'll pass it along but I would like to reward you for making my life simpler."

Thanks to a small note written just a few hours earlier, the truly important message was, in many ways, already sent. Carter straightened in his chair just a bit, straightening his robes slowly. "I don't suppose you could tell Emily to send this morning's missives by courier, might you?" His voice was tinted with irony, though it trembled slightly over the words too. And finally, he allowed himself to look at the picture on his desk, memorizing yet again an image he knew by heart, a moment he now allowed himself to dwell upon.

"I'll do what I can." She looked at him for another moment or two then shrugged, "You're not so bad, Carter. For an inflexible bastard, of course but not so bad. Oh well." Malice straightened up and reached out to place her hand on his temple.



She walked back out the way she'd come in, the lone lawyer gone from his table. Her hair was tucked neatly under her hat again, sunglasses on, hands tucked in her coat pocket. No one gave her a second look as she walked out of the courthouse, just another a slender young woman with a purposeful stride.