Kane and Adrienne - In Florida

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

Saturday morning, Garrison drags Adrienne to the ball field early to watch the Jays pitching practice, and gives her a little impromptu demonstration of the sort of social power she's seeking being used unconsciously for good rather than evil.


It was slightly chilly in the morning for Dunedin, with most of the players now wearing warmup sweats while getting loose in the cooler air. The radio had said the day was expected to warm up once the sun came out, but that was going to be a few hours. Kane didn't really care. He'd already picked up a double-double from the Tim Horton's kiosk in the stadium, and was looking forward to a few pints of Blue after the American beer of Fort. Myers. He leaned on the rail of the lightly populated bleachers, watching the pitchers run sprints pole to pole in the outfield to warm up.

Shivering in her skimpy sundress, Adrienne was cursing Garrison, the Jays, and Dunedin in general as grumpily as she possibly could as she gripped her coffee in a way that looked as if she was trying to jump into it. "Kane, was getting here this early to stand around in the freezing cold an evil plot to get me to go buy a Jays jacket from the souvenir shop just so I don't catch hypothermia?" she asked. It was the first civil thing she'd said to him since they'd arrived.

"Actually, I figured it would give me a place to hang my cap if I needed it." Garrison said, without tearing his eyes away from the field. The Canadian was calculating times in his head of sprints, enjoying the warm up exercises that were not dissimilar to the ones that Eugene Judd had subjected him to for years of training.

"Reminds me." Kane dug into his jacket pocket, and pulled out a hat. It was a Toronto Blue Jays cap, but one of the retro-ones, with the bright blue back, white front, and traditional stylized logo. He passed it over to Adrienne, and it was easy to see that this was not newly purchased. "If you're going to watch the game, you need a cap. Consider it protective camoflague."

"Cheeky bastard," she grinned in reply to his comment about hanging his cap. She stared warily at the accessory he passed her, picking it up between two fingers. "This thing looks older than I am- not that that's all that old... Is this one of yours? Do I have to worry about lice or cooties or anything?" she teased.

"You're safe. It's actually one of my sister's old caps. Mine tended to get worn into the dirt over the years. She's a heretic and thinks the new caps are cooler, so I pilfered a couple of her old ones." Kane said. He had a couple of them in his closet, part of his program to indoctrainate people into baseball. It had worked well enough on Marie up in Toronto.

"Ah, looks like the Doc is going into stretches. That means we'll be seeing pitching in a few minutes."

"Ooo, Halladay pitching, be still my heart." Adrienne raised an eyebrow at him. "Your sister likes baseball? Is she hot?" The coffee had to be put down in order to pull her hair back into a tail, but Adrienne paused with the thing poised over her head. "I don't think I can do this. It's against all that I stand for."

"Two words for you. Bill. Buckner. Put the damn hat on." Kane sipped his coffee, the plastic lid bumping his upper lip in a familiar fashion. "And what's with this sudden need to go after every girl mentioned in your presence? Lil's convinced you're trying to dive into her lap, everyone else is convinced that Sam is yours and Morgan's beard, and now you're attempted to scope out my sister through me. Did I miss the notice about a visit from the Lesbian Fairy or something?"



Jamming the hat onto her head and adjusting it with a vicious yank, Adrienne threw up her hands in exasperation. "Does living in that mansion make people suddenly unable to understand jokes? I do not go after every girl mentioned in my presence! I joke about it because it amuses me to do so- especially with Lil because she gets so damned uncomfortable and it's funny to watch. I mistakenly thought I was living in a place and spending time among people where I've grown to feel comfortable enough to make those sorts of jokes, but apparently I shouldn't be making them at all due to the fact that everyone takes the jokes as literal truth!" She was being melodramatic and not at all serious, but running her mouth off was keeping her warm. With a shiver, she picked up her coffee again, hugging her hands around it to warm them.

"If I actually cared what you people thought of me I might be genuinely upset. As it is, I'm too cold to get into a proper indignant tirade over it," she teased. "The hat may be camouflage but it's not very warm."



"I don't know. You make a lot of those jokes, which could mean it's what you really want to say, but are afraid of the reaction. Do you have long and lingering dreams about nude women, Adrienne? Is baseball really just a way to try and show off the manly side that makes you want to possess women?" Kane paused. "Tell me about your mother." He finished in a ridiculous German accent.




Eyes were rolled and a snort was made. "I don't think I'm entirely comfortable discussing my dreams with you, Kane." Taking her eyes from Halladay and the pitching exercises, she glanced at Garrison. "I used to sleep with women, you know," she reminded him. "I find many people attractive, women and men, whether or not I want to sleep with them, and I'm not afraid of what people think in regards to my sexuality." Her insistance on this point was firm. Adrienne had never been afraid to go after what she wanted until she'd met Steven, and as she'd said, maybe she wasn't ready to hop into bed with anyone right now, but that didn't mean she was going to keep being afraid to say what she wanted to say, the way she had been afraid while married. "I'm not married to Captain Oppressive anymore, Freud. I should be able to say whatever I want about whomever I want, provided I'm not hurting anybody by doing it, which I don't think I am. Unless it pains you that I joke about your sister being hot. Maybe you should tell me about your relationship with her, eh?" she asked in her own German accent.


"My sister has terrible taste in lovers. Especially if she thinks they'll annoy me. She'd probably love you." Kane rejoined, filing the information away. Adrienne had been largely asexual since coming to the mansion, and with her being married before, he'd simply assumed she was hetrosexual. He decided to control the sudden rush of images that built out of her closeness with Morgan by using the age old male secret; thinking about baseball.

"Alright, unless you're planning to pick up, let's go down on the field. I think I see Tony LaCava down there, and he can let us through."



"So by your logic, you think I'd be a terrible lover?" Adrienne asked, looking shocked. She sipped at her coffee, then Garrison's words about going to see Tony LaCava sunk in. She stopped with the cup against her lip. Until it burned her. And she dropped it. Onto her shoes. Which had her yelping indignantly. "Did I just hear you say go down on the field or was that some sort of fantasy I had that tied itself onto my fantasy about your sister?"



"I said my sister had terrible taste in lovers, not that she she chose people who were terrible lovers. That I do not know about, do not want to know about, and don't ever suggest the thought to Vikks or Lil, because both of the bitches will likely try and spend the next six hours trying to tell me about in graphic detail, and I will be forced to take my own life." Kane headed for the side of the dugout, where the media access was.



"Yeah, come on. Tony will likely let us say hi. He's done it before, although that's usually at the Rogers Centre."

Adrienne cocked her head in confusion. "Your sister and Lil? I thought Lil didn't like girls! Was that all an act to dissuade me?" She figured she should probably drop the subject now that they were getting close to the press, but would leave that up to Garrison. "So, what? You're personal friends with the Blue Jays? Did you used to be a bat boy or something?"


"Vikks and Lil are good friends, and thus, enjoy making my life miserable." Garrison waved down to a man in a windbreaker, standing next to someone who looked suspiciously like a Boston native. The wave was returned, and a 'come on over' motion made. Kane held the gate for Adrienne and joined her on the turf.

"It's a little more difficult. One part of the Gamma Flight program involves kids with disabilities who also have mutations. We teamed up with the Jays Kids fund about, shit, eight years ago? I was still in school at the time, and we've done a lot of work between the two. A lot of the Jays are involved in it pretty heavily, so you end up chatting during benefits and things." Kane grinned. "Also, meeting a real live superhero Mountie impresses them almost as much as me meeting a guy who can throw nine complete games in this era."


Adrienne elbowed him playfully. "Superhero Mountie Boy Scout; I think I see the kiddies' appeal." She straightened her cap and tried to keep a hand over the small coffee stain that had blossomed on the hip of her sundress when she'd dropped her coffee, in case the camera caught her. "You should start one of these programs with the Sox and either invite me to the benefits or get them to come to the benefits I have for my company," she suggested, smiling winningly at the man who'd approached them.



"You'd have to talk to Epstein or the Red Sox ownership. Jays Fund is a private charity by the association." Kane said, pausing to shake hands with LaCava and Jp Ricciadri briefly, before introducing Adrienne and letting them get back to the exercises. They were given permission to wander around, so long as they stayed out of the way, and Garrison took them off to one side where the pitchers were warming up on the training mounds, and beginning throwing exercises with a platoon of catchers.

"So, want to watch the people who are going to no hit the Bosox next year?"



"I know it's a private charity," Adrienne hissed after the introductions had been made, "I just want you to approach the Sox because I don't have the time for the bureaucratic rigamarole and I was hoping you did. You already know what hoops would have to be jumped through, I'm assuming." She followed Garrison aimlessly, winking and waving at the men whose eye she caught, though most, admittedly, were absorbed in their work. "I don't know if I should be watching them. If I get too close I might take some readings and give the Sox some insider tips," she joked.


"That might involve having to talk to JD Drew, and I don't think I'm willing to risk that." Kane paused, watching a tall righty drop a perfect power curve into the glove. "And no amount of insider tips will help them. Looks like Purcey's got his slider working both sides of the plate. Good."



Adrienne rolled her eyes. She was beginning to worry that after this trip they would be permanently damaged in some way from too much rolling. "But you could if you were so inclined, yes? Because you are a Superhero Mountie Boy Scout?"

"I could always send a note to Heather, get her to nose out the situation. At the very least, we could rope them into something in Toronto during a series. They generally like getting their work visas on time." He joked. "Ooh, looks like Mills is working on his cutter too. A two seamer will make him even more dangerous."


"Heather is one of your many minions? Or another relative?" Adrienne questioned, frowning at Halladay's latest pitch before switching her gaze to Mills.

"Heather Hudson is the communications director for Department H. Her husband, Mac, is the director of research, and probably one of the most brilliant engineers of the last fifty years. She works directly with Minister Robert MacDonald, who's, well, I suppose about the same level as the Deputy Secretary of Defense in the US." Kane said, fully absorbed in watching the pitching mechanics. Ryan still looked a little rusty in his windup.

"I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that you know the Canadian equivalent to the Deputy Secretary of Defense," Adrienne deadpanned. "Doesn't everyone in Canada know one another?"


"Well, there are only thirteen Canadians in total across the whole country."


"So the Xavier mansion holds a quarter of your country's population, then?" Adrienne asked, nudging him with her shoulder playfully. "Aww, the Boy Scout is so modest, trying to play down the fact that he knows all the important ears to bend in Canada. You are clearly a very terrifying and imposing figure, Kane."

"You know, all I have to do is out you as a Masshole now, and you won't get out of the stadium. Just saying, eh." Kane responded, clapping as he watched Doc deliver a trio of change ups, obviously his homework for this spring training.

"Oh please, Mister Superhero Mountie Boy Scout who knows Important People in Canada! Don't feed me to the wolves!" she shouted loudly. "Okay, I get it." More eye rolling, though her tone had lowered to a normal volume, "you really are a terrifying and imposing figure. Now that I know this I may have to exploit your connections, you realize this right?" Not that she would ever be able to exploit Garrison for anything. The cop could see through her manipulations. She wouldn't get anywhere with him. Not that she would ever try...

"If you're going to exploit me, I demand you buy me dinner first." Kane said dryly, earning a bark of laughter from a passing Hill as he went by them for fielding practice. "Seriously though, you just need to ask. I won't promise anything, but I don't mind asking people if you've got a good cause or something in mind."

"Dinner before and a massage afterwards, I promise," Adrienne countered. "I just need to ask, huh? How about a jacket so I don't freeze to death. Jesus. You'd think the team brought this weather in purposefully because you Canadians thrive in it and the Jays need any advantage they can get."

"I thought you were from New England, land of picturesque American winters and all that crap." Kane joked, pointing her back towards the stadium giftshop. "Alright, let's go and get you something warmer to wear. By the way," He paused and smiled evilly. "which Jay's name do you want on the back of it, eh?"