xp_logs | Morgan & Adrienne | Backdated, Thursday morning

x-copycat.livejournal.com posting in

The mercenary meets the husband murderer.
Takes place just before Morgan runs into Manuel.

Some days she wondered if she'd ever get used to not having the guys around. Morgan had been at it for hours in the gym already. In her head she had all their voices floating around. Aleister told her not to wear herself out because she had kids to teach later and he was always one to stress being in the best frame of mind possible when teaching anyone anything. She wasn't tired though, not even close. If anything Morgan felt energized. Eamon she could hear pushing her to put more into it, hit the punching bag harder, go faster, reach beyond her comfort zone. Mike mostly just told her to use her leg once in a while. And Thom, Thom was just pretending to leer and pick on small mistakes she made, stuff that would matter if this was a person with a knife. She was so used to having them around that even after he died she couldn't get Aleister's voice out of her head. She missed them, they were family. Until she stopped, pushing the voices of Mág Ealga out of her head, so she could grab her water the blue-skinned woman didn't even notice someone else was in the gym with her.

Adrienne entered the gym in new workout clothes from a line she was still trying to find a buyer for, swinging a small handheld radio from a cord around her wrist, blaring the pre-game commentary to the upcoming Boston game on an AM sports channel. Some intimate time with the elliptical machine was in order. She was feeling horribly out-of-shape after her self-defense training session with Ororo.

Distracted by the commentary, the psychometrist failed to notice the blue-skinned woman occupying the same space as herself until she'd reached the elliptical machine, when an ad came on and snapped her out of her baseball haze. She let out a noise of surprise, the odd skin colour catching her off guard- even though she'd seen profile pictures on the journals Adrienne had yet to meet Morgan in person. "Don't hurt your hand," she advised when she'd recovered her composure and the other woman had stopped working on the punching bag, any flippant comment she might have voiced having died on her lips when she'd caught a glimpse of the pummelling the bag had received before the blue woman had stopped.

The comment caught Morgan by surprise. Her eyebrows arched up toward her hairline and furrowed together in the center. Why would anyone say that? Morgan glanced quickly between the woman she didn't know and the punching bag. Red eyes were full of confusion. "Right, well, thanks. Haven't hurt my hand on a bag since I was seventeen but, er, I appreciate the concern?" Really, what was she supposed to say to that? One look at Morgan in her shorts and tank top betrayed the well toned cords of muscle that ran down her arms and legs. One look at her companion, so to speak, gave the impression that she was a bit of a fluffy, girlie thing. She wasn't fat, it wasn't anything like that. It was that the most tedious working Morgan was willing to bet she got was lifting her mobile to her ear and climbing the steps between floors.

"Seventeen, huh? I'm impressed," Adrienne smiled, turning down the volume on her radio. "I think the only pounding I did when I was seventeen was pounding the runways of Europe, and by 'pounding' I mean gliding with the utmost grace and poise. Of course, learning how to hit might have been a more useful skill in the company of other seventeen year-olds," she scoffed thoughtfully, trying to keep herself from mentally adding that learning how to hit would have been more useful in the company of her husband. "I'm Adrienne Frost, by the way. I don't believe we've been introduced." She sauntered up to the blue woman and offered a gloved hand.

Oh, wasn't this one just a fucking peach? Condescending much? Morgan arranged her sweetest and most subtly patronizing smile on her face before she spoke. She liked to push buttons, she couldn't help it. "Did you end up with a drug habit and an eating disorder like so many models do?" Her voice was pleasant and curious, a helpful skill she'd learnt long ago when pretending to be other people. "Who said I was in the company of other seventeen year olds? Do you always presume to know everything Ms. Frost? As far as I'm aware you're not a telepath. That just makes you condescending and presumptuous then, doesn't it?" Her smile only became sweeter as she took Adrienne's hand. Morgan did not have the grip that most women had. She was a soldier who hung around men. She had the kind of body lingerie models had but there wasn't anything soft about her and that included her grip. She wasn't even trying, it was just the way she shook hands, her default setting. "Morgan Lennox. Pleasure to meet you."

The smile faded from Adrienne's face and an eyebrow shot skyward. Well, then. She'd gotten so used to playing nice with people out of necessity since coming here, she'd almost forgotten what it was like to be up against someone who wasn't instantly friendly. "Despite my best efforts, no, I didn't end up with either a drug problem or an eating disorder," she said with a forced laugh, "just my own modeling and fashion design company. Though I think my daddy would have given me more attention if I'd had the drug problem or the anorexia." She wrinkled her nose and grinned again, though her tone was far from teasing. "And I didn't say you were in the company of other seventeen year-olds, I said I was. So who's the presumptuous one, then?" She stuck out the handshake without wincing or pulling her hand away, but only barely.

Morgan released Adrienne's hand, not letting a trace of her annoyance even come through in that gesture. She was nothing if not emotionally controlled when she had to be. Morgan was annoyed, but she chose to take a path that did not involve showing it quite as much as she could. "Your phrasing that 'learning how to hit might have been a more useful skill in the company of other seventeen year-olds' suggested you were not in the company of seventeen year olds and that I, as a seventeen year old, was. I wasn't presuming anything, I was simply interpreting the words which came out of your own mouth." Morgan's voice was very calm, even and almost patient. It was the sort of tone a teacher used when explaining something to a pupil who still didn't understand after repeatedly explaining the same thing. "Terrible tragedy, unable to become an addict or an anorexic and instead achieving a company which only propagates such things. It's the next best thing, isn't it? What you failed to grasp for your own you can still share with multitudes of girls all over the world through your business efforts. A touching tale, really."

"Well, unfortunately, you interpreted them wrong," Adrienne pointed out sweetly. She wasn't as pissed off as she might have been, however, due to the fact that the woman was trying to sort out what she meant by quoting her directly, instead of just spinning Adrienne's words to suit her assumption and reasserting the fact that she knew what Adrienne had said better than she herself did. The fact that she was having to explain the correct interpretation of her words as if to a child was something she accepted graciously. "You're right that I said that learning how to hit might have been a more useful skill in the company of other seventeen year-olds," she continued, still speaking in the sugary tone she sometimes used on her students when they were being blatantly idiotic, "but I meant more useful than learning how to walk a runway." She paused for a moment to listen to one of the 'experts' on the baseball broadcast, furrowing her brow in disagreement though she kept from cursing the voice out. The other topic the woman had brought up, that of her company's image, kept the false smile off her face. Her company was the most important thing in the world to her, and Adrienne was admittedly overprotective of it. When she spoke there was a steely edge to her voice. "I don't believe I have to defend myself to you, Ms. Lennox, but if you knew the first thing about me you'd know that my company deals in men's and women's active wear and women's business attire. My models are all healthy. I insist upon it, and with my... gift, I have the ability to make sure they stay that way or they're out."

"I'd have to agree. Considering it doesn't look like you've possibly seen the inside of a gym in your life aside from requirements in school it would have been much more useful. Kidnappings, dinosaurs, this isn't the place to be a fluffy little girl, is it, Ms. Frost?" Morgan was a bit amused by the whole conversation, she couldn't deny that at all. Adrienne Frost came across as a prissy little thing, the kind who wouldn't eat at anything short of a four star restaurant, three if she absolutely had to for some reason, and whose wardrobe likely cost more than someone people's yearly rent. She shouldn't pass judgement on the rich and bitchy but how could she not? "Miss," she corrected. "Miss Lennox. And your 'gift'?" That was one way of referring to someone's powers, their gift. It was a lovely euphemism. "Does your mutation make you a one woman surveillance van?"

Adrienne was mentally fuming at Morgan's comment about seeing the inside of a gym, and set a resolve at that moment to spend more time working out. She wasn't insecure enough to believe that she was overweight, but knew she'd been too preoccupied lately with her other problems to keep up with her usual exercise regimen and the possibility that it was beginning to show unnerved her. "No, the school is most certainly not the place to be if you're a fluffy little girl," she answered, struggling to keep her voice level, reminding herself that she had nothing to prove to this bitchy blue woman. Hadn't she already survived a kidnapping and a fight against pirates in a little more than a month? Fluffy, indeed. "'Good thing neither you nor I have to worry about being fluffy little girls, right?" she added in a simper. "I mean, you are blue like a pretty stuffed toy, but I bet people wouldn't be mean enough to call you fluffy, correct?" She paused again to listen to a comment on the radio, then continued. "My mutation is psychometry, Miss Lennox. The ability to read the past and future of any object I touch. So yes, basically it does make me a one-woman surveillance van. What's yours? Blue pigmentation and a chip on your shoulder against affluent people?"

She loved when she hit a nerve and Morgan was sure she found one in all that pretty and coiffed. She wouldn't have been quite so antagonistic if Adrienne acted like she had an actual brain. Unfortunately she mostly acted like a self-absorbed, spoiled brat. Who was it that said the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless? Right now Adrienne was neatly placing herself in exactly that category, though Morgan failed to see the woman as attractive, bratty people rarely were. "They could call me fluffy all they like. They would be wrong, and likely mentally deficient." The inquiry into her own powers made her grin. "Don't you pay attention?" Normally she wouldn't have done it because she did respect people more than that but since Adrienne had been condescending to begin with she didn't really feel the need to respect her limits.

Morgan reached out and merely brushed her hand over Adrienne's hair because Morgan needed contact to genetic material but didn't feel like potentially setting off Adrienne's own mutation. The effect was instant, like an amazingly well done visual effect in a movie. Morgan's body faded into Adrienne's right down to blood type. She hadn't kept contact long enough to get an exact match of the vocal cord so she lacked Adrienne's voice, but she did shift out of her normal Boston accent to mimic Adrienne's. "I copy people, Ms. Frost. An exact genetic copy, right down to your mental imprint and powers if I want them." Normally she explained how long that took, but Adrienne could be paranoid of her if she liked. Morgan stretched her arm, testing it, watching the muscles move. "You really do lack any real strength in your body." Morgan was shifting this way and that, getting a feel for the borrowed body. She really hated being short and by her definition Adrienne was short, the mimic having caused Morgan to shrink five inches.

Chuckling in genuine amusement at Morgan's response to the 'fluffy' comment, the blue woman's advance towards her caught Adrienne by surprise, but she had no time to react before Morgan had touched her. She staggered back at the touch, completely caught off guard. For a split second she'd thought Morgan was going to hit her, and when she became able to breathe again, fear had paled her face and caused her hands to shake. Staring back at the mirror image of herself didn't make her feel any better. "'You want to be me?" she spat out before she could stop herself, unnerved more by the residual fear of being hit than of the actual mimic, "go ahead. The powers are one enormous headache and the murder investigation's a fucking picnic, but fuck you if you think I don't have any strength." She'd been strong enough to take on fucking pirates, for Christ's sake.

Morgan was laughing, all too amused at the reaction. "You think one murder investigation is the worst that could befall someone like you if someone like me felt like having a joy ride in your body? And the best thing is the DNA would match yours, as would the fingerprints. Grand theft auto, killing important city officials, trying to kill the chief of police and that's just for starters. All I'd have to do is not get caught, drop the mimic and all the evidence points to you. And you'd never be able to prove it was me, there's no way to. It could have been any shapeshifter, any metamorph and then you need to prove why you're so important for me to do this to you?" Morgan made a tsking sound, light and mocking. People really didn't grasp the gravity of the situation, did they? They all worried about someone copying their powers and how they were so hard to deal with, but the worst things Morgan could do she was already trained to do, all she had to do was use their bodies to do it. Who needed a mental imprint or powers? Just their body was enough to cause more than enough trouble. "This body? You can lift about fifty pounds alright probably. More than that you couldn't sustain for long. That's not much strength. Or are you going to pretend since you're a girl you don't need physical strength?"

It was a scary thought, to be sure, but Adrienne merely shook her head in reaction to the scenario. "There's one problem with your brilliant plan to steal my identity to set me up with a long rap sheet and a life in prison, Miss Lennox," she said coolly, the baseball commentary in the background of the conversation helping to steady her nerves. "You work here, at Xavier's. They don't let people who do what you're suggesting work here. From what I gather they don't really care if you pulled stunts like that in the past, but my guess is you wouldn't be allowed within one hundred feet of the place if you had any intention of doing something like that now. And why the hell would I be at a gym if I thought I didn't need physical strength?" she added with a raised eyebrow.

Morgan was bored and since she wasn't trying to hide it Adrienne should have recognized the expression on her own face. "I'm not primarily here as a teacher. That's a new acquisition. I'm here for powers training. I didn't have to promise to behave in order to be helped with the side effects that cropped up recently. You see, they like helping people here and they wouldn't turn someone away unless they were fairly awful. There may be telepaths about, Ms. Frost, but they aren't scanning every thought every moment of the day." Rolling her shoulders back, Morgan had a look of mild disgust and then dropped the mimic. She really wasn't fond of Adrienne's body, it felt weak. Her form bled back to her own seamlessly, like water rippling over stones. "Why the hell would you be on an elliptical if you wanted physical strength?"

The fact that she and Morgan had been brought to the mansion for the same reason surprised Adrienne, and she lapsed into silence as the information sunk in. She still couldn't get worked up overly much about Morgan's threat of having unchecked thoughts about causing trouble- empty threats, after all, were a tactic she herself was all too familiar with and she recognized one when she heard one. But just to be on the safe side, she made a mental note to keep in the company of other people for a while, so she'd always have an alibi. "Because the punching bag hurts my hand," she answered in the girly-est tone she could manage, smirking.

Morgan would be hard pressed to look any more unimpressed than she did right now. "Real strength is about dealing with the pain and working through it." The implication went beyond questioning Adrienne's physical strength. "You run away from the bag because it hurt you? How are you going to master it then? Do you run away from all things that hurt you?" She raised an eyebrow at the other woman. "You know who does that? Victims. I'm sure they'll be thrilled to have you in the club."

Adrienne was hard-pressed to think of a conversation she found more stunning than this one. She barely managed to keep her jaw from dropping open, knowing she was nowhere near ready to form a coherent reply to what Morgan was saying. The radio had been completely tuned out, and instead there was a buzzing in her ears that overwhelmed even the thoughts in her head. "I didn't- I... I don't- I'm not a victim." Okay, so not so coherent, then. "I'm not a victim." Not anymore. "It was just a joke," she said quietly, "I'm not running away. I'm learning it. I just began."

"Hit a button there, did I?" Morgan didn't look apologetic. She was of the opinion that avoidance increased the problem and tip toeing about it to handle it in the least painful way possible never helped. She was all around diving in head first. "Tell yourself it was just a joke. Your tone, your posture and your body language all say different. You just began ain't an excuse, cupcake. The bag hurts your hand. So what? You need to get used to the pain for it to stop hurting. As long as you aren't spraining, or fracturing something then you need to swallow the pain and work through it. Just like people who haven't worked out in ages who suddenly get on a bike and they're sore the next day. You have to get back on even through you're still sore. Besides, hitting that bag, even if it hurts, will make you feel a lot more empowered than an elliptical will." Her voice had calmed. The edge had been shaved off it and she wasn't mocking Adrienne or talking down to her now. Now she was talking to her like she'd talk to anyone, especially like she'd talk to a student.

Adrienne glowered in response to Morgan 'hitting a button'. "The bag hurting my hand was a joke," she reiterated. "I just began training with Ororo Munroe and she's teaching me how to hit it properly." It wasn't fair to keep Morgan thinking that Munroe wasn't training her properly, was it? Not that she cared about Munroe's reputation, of course. "And you were using the bag when I came in, so I was going on the elliptical until you were finished." Christ, was this what came of trying to be considerate to other people?! "But if you're done now, and you want some practice for your new job," she said with a raised eyebrow, almost in a challenging tone, "you can coach me and make sure I don't hurt myself. And don't call me 'cupcake'."

"On the bag? Alright, sweetness, grab tape and gloves. We'll see how far blondie's got you so far." Morgan grinned. She had a feeling she wasn't nearly as easy a teacher as Ororo may be. It happened when the guys who taught you everything you knew had learned them from drill sergeants and the like. There was something to be said for tough love, after all. She wasn't going to be unnecessarily mean, but cupcake here needed some toughening up by the looks of it.

Adrienne rolled her eyes, but the corner of her mouth was tugging into a smile. "My name's Adrienne, not 'cupcake' or 'sweetness'." She pulled off her everyday, 'anti-reading-everything-she-touched' gloves and gestured towards the tape. "You gotta tape me up," she informed the blue woman. "It's not a weakness thing," she assured Morgan quickly, defensively. "If I pick up the roll, I'll get a reading on it, and I can't move when I'm keyed into something, so I can't wrap the tape around myself. Just another fun side effect of my power. After it's on it might take a few seconds before I can move- the reading of the tape on my hands has to finish before I can do anything else. Thank Christ this tape doesn't have a long life span or I'd be immobile for an hour learning all the history and future of it."

"Of course it is, pet." Morgan was grinning, very obviously doing it on purpose. How could you possibly resist? It was such an easy button to push, and completely harmless. All that stuffy needed to be beaten out of the woman or something. If pet names did part of the job then so be it. "I said grab, I didn't say anything about taping yourself. You'd only manage one hand on your own anyway." Oh how little people listened. Morgan grabbed the tape and gestured for Adrienne to hold one of her hands out to her. "Now that's got to suck, you read everything you touch? Even people?" That was an ability she did not feel the urge to copy and play with whatsoever. Morgan stopped suddenly, head tilting to the side as she listened to something that had caught her attention. "You listening to a Red Sox game?"

Holding out a hand, Adrienne rolled her eyes again, but resisted the urge to bait Morgan any further. "I don't read people. Only objects. Maybe Xavier can help me develop that particular part of my power, but I'm not sure it's something I necessarily want to learn." A brow shot skyward at Morgan's question. "The game's on later. This is pre-game commentary. You a fan?"

"Reading people would go beyond the realm of sucking. Sorry, but there's some things I just don't want to know," she said as she taped up Adrienne's hand. She'd been careful at first of how she touched her but once she knew it was an object only kind of thing her caution faded to something much more natural. "Yeah. Well, sorta." Morgan wrinkled her nose at the thought. "Used to be. Grew up in Boston, obviously," it was hard to not identify her accent as being from Boston. The only thing that confused people was the quiet melding of Irish with it. "Haven't been in the country for a while, though. Didn't have time to keep up. So, yeah, I am, but I'm out of the loop with their goings on."

As the tape touched her hand Adrienne felt the usual blow to her senses of the reading invading her mind. As she'd expected, it didn't take long- the tape had a rather sad history, really- but she missed some of what Morgan had said, only catching the last sentence. "Sorry, all I caught was 'out of the loop,'" she muttered with an apologetic shake of her head. "But it doesn't really matter- once a Boston fan, always a Boston fan, right? 'No such thing as out of the loop with the Nation. You should come to Harry's with Garrison and I the next time the Sox play his pathetic little Jays. I could use a wingman for harassing him."

Morgan laughed. She wasn't too bothered that most of what she'd said hadn't been heard. It wasn't intentional on Adrienne's part and it wasn't that important on her own. "Harass the charming Canadian? Oh, I can manage that just fine. You must be the other one," she emphasized the words to lend faux seriousness along with the deepening of her voice. "He bemoaned the fact that all the attractive women who wanted to get a drink with him lately were Sox fans. I hadn't asked who the other, or I guess potentially others, happened to be."

"I am the other one, yes," Adrienne grinned. "I think I was the only one, until you arrived, so there are no others. Just us." She held out her other hand obediently and flexed the one that had already been taped experimentally. "And I don't doubt you can manage. He broke up with his girlfriend, y'know," she pointed out in a teasing tone, relishing the fact that her life had become so much easier since she'd stopped being interested in men, dating, and relationships in general. It eliminated that whole realm of jealousy towards other women which had plagued her for much of her earlier life.

"Only the two of us? That's a shame. He really should be sidelined by more than that but I'm sure we're more than formidable enough." Morgan grinned as she started to tape up Adrienne's other hand. The teasing tone was the cause of the metamorph's eyebrow creeping upward more than what she was being teased about. She really had cracked some kind of shell, hadn't she? Miracles do happen, she thought wryly. "Aye, they broke up but he didn't do the breaking and he's still mad for her. I don't mess with taken sorts and if a heart's taken it doesn't matter much whether they're with the object of their affection or not. I don't like drama and and someone hung up on someone else is just asking for headache."

Adrienne opened her mouth to reply about the combined formidable powers of herself and Morgan, but the retort died as the other woman put the tape on her hand. She came out of her psychometric trance to hear Morgan announce that she didn't mess with taken sorts. Once again her self-imposed hermit-hood kept her from being catty and mentioning that giving up a man you wanted simply because he was hung up on someone else seemed weak. "I bet the thing about drama and headache's a lie. I bet you're just one big fluffy blue ball of honor and romanticism, aren't'cha?" she said instead, smirking in jest. "The tape on this hand is going to unravel in about five minutes." Assuming her reading was accurate.

Morgan gave her a look and it was dry enough that she didn't need the tone to match. "How is it unraveling once it's got a glove on it?" Though she didn't argue it further, just checked it and re-did it in the only place that seemed weak. If that didn't hold she would not take blame for it, Adrienne was tapped all to hell, really. "Yes, that's me, honor bound to the end." She managed to stamp down the snort that wanted to escape. She could list a fair few people who would not agree with statement in regards to her whatsoever. "Really, being someone's rebound? Life's short and I've got better things to do, love."

"Wild flailing punches? I dunno, I just tell it like I see it," Adrienne replied, making a face. Future readings were never set in stone, of course- she'd mostly just made a fuss about the tape unraveling to show off her mutation. "Good point about the 'rebound' thing," she agreed. "What better sorts of things do you have to do? I mean, what do you do when you're not in the gym harassing people about their workouts? And don't call me 'love'."

"I call everyone 'love,' deal with it." She said it as if she were telling the woman to get used tot he sky being blue, it wasn't going to change. "It's indelibly imprinted on my brain from too many Brits, Scots and Irish. Ain't changing, no use complaining or I'll call you 'cupcake' and 'sugar tits' instead." She grinned and slipped a glove over Adrienne's tapped hand. "When I'm not in the gym harassing people? I work out, because I've got the time to now. I spend a lot of time on my bike. Teach self-defense. Help out with the reorganizing stuff they're doing because of the Institute starting up more. Harass people elsewhere. Get up to no good. Y'know, the usual." She didn't mention sitting around studying people or reading, which is what she really did with most of her time, though the rest of it was spent doing exactly what she'd said. After getting the second glove on Adrienne's hand and laced up she checked them to make sure they were secure. "Not too tight? And there won't be wild, flailing punches. We're going to teach you some technique before we let you near the bag again.

The psychometrist screwed up her face again, but the glove hitting her fingers cut off her comment until after reading the object. She waited until the other glove had gone on and they'd both been tightened before bothering to continue the conversation. "Fine, call me 'luv', call me 'cupcake'," she frowned when her mind had been released from the images. "Just don't call me 'sugar tits'. My husband called me that, and he went and got himself murdered. And I missed most of what you said. Sorry. Gloves have a longer history than tape. All I heard was 'wild, flailing punches' and that you're going to teach me technique."

Morgan immediately made a face like she tasted something sour. "He actually called you 'sugar tits'? I hope you smacked him for that. With a two-by-four." She shook her head. "Yeah, I'm gonna teach you technique, or teach you more from whatever Ororo taught ya. Then you'll aim for hands. Then we'll get you on the bag. You need posture and proper extension so you don't pull something first. I refuse to even think about footwork." Suddenly she grinned. "You ready, love?"

"I thought it was sexy. I was really young and stupid at the time," Adrienne said with a shake of her head, figuring that answer actually worked as an excuse for most of the mistakes she'd committed while being with Steven, like staying with him for so long. "Nowadays yes, I'd be hitting someone with a two-by-four. Or just socking them with these brawny gloves." She took an exaggerated swipe in Morgan's direction, deliberately overextending as her arm crossed her body so that she staggered forward and off balance. "Ready if you are, cupcake."