Adrienne and Jake - late Monday/early Tuesday

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Adrienne ambushes Jake in the middle of the night in order to claim her payment for agreeing to go to Madripoor. The question of Jean-Paul is dodged, while the notion of Jake modeling is put to rest. There might also be mention of a van with an airbrushed unicorn on it.



She hadn't given him any sort of warning about coming to his place at nearly midnight, but Adrienne thought it wasn't really necessary. After all, Jake hadn't given her any sort of warning that Garrison was coming to Madripoor. Payback was a bitch. At least it wasn't some ungodly hour of the morning. She pounded on his door. "Gavin!" she bellowed in her best scholmistress voice. "Gavin! You better not be asleep. You owe me baked goods, and I've come to collect! Pay up!"

"You'll have to stop by later than this to catch me asleep," he said wryly, opening the door, and it appeared to be true. Jake was still dressed for the office, although his shoes and tie were gone, and his laptop and a stack of files were spread across the coffee table. He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, and regarded her with an amused smile. "You know that most bakeries are closed at this time of night, right?"

"Ah, but you're Jake Gavin. You know all the secret all-night bakeries," Adrienne crooned. "And you owe me. And I want brownies now. So pay up, Stretch."

"I'm simply saying that I promised you that we'd visit the best bakeries in New York, many of which are closed at the moment. I wouldn't want you to feel like I was cheating you out of what I promised." He grinned. "Let me get my shoes, and we'll go find you some brownies."

***

He was, in fact, Jake Gavin, and he did know all of the secret late- and all-night bakeries, at least the ones in lower Manhattan. As tempted as he was to take Adrienne to Baked, home of the Stonut and the kind of people you'd expect to find at a hippie all-night bakery, he decided not to be too mean to her. Instead, he took her to a slightly more reputable bakery, one that closed at 2am. "Voila," he intoned as he held the door open for her.

"Is this better than the stoner hippie bakery you've talked about?" she questioned curiously. "I don't want to be cheated here on the best bakery available. I can take care of myself around hippies, you know." Adrienne nodded emphatically at Jake. "So you were still up working at this hour?" she inquired as she perused the counter. "It seems you're a man after my own heart."

He laughed at her first question. "This place is just as good, if slighlty less organic," he promised. "And if you work such late hours, that just means I can take you to Baked some other night. Do you want Jubilee and I to call you the next time we go?"

"Yes. Yes I do," Adrienne nodded emphatically. She took her brownie and sat at a booth, wasting no time in devouring it. "Especially if your going happens to coincide again with my being too excited to sleep," she blurted out before she could stop herself. It must've been the chocolate. "What were you working on, or is it secret Trenchcoat stuff?"

He waved a hand dismissively while he chewed his dessert, a thick, fudgy Mudslide cookie. "Badgering contacts in Hong Kong. Nothing all that exciting, really." Which was frustrating, as he'd hoped they would have more information for him. He glanced at her. "Do I want to ask why you're not sleeping?"

"Please don't," she shook her head. "It's not because I'm sleeping with anyone, though," she added hurriedly, and then wasn't quite sure why she'd said it. "There's a party on Thursday night I'm eagerly anticipating. How are things with Jean-Paul?"

His eyebrows quirked up at that, not sure where to start. "Things are...fine, I guess. He's off galavanting around Europe with Nathan right now." He gave her an inquisitive look. "What party?"

Adrienne wasn't entirely sure she should get into the subject of the Hellfire Club with Jake. People she spoke to about it, especially those with mansion connections, seemed more likely than not to get twitchy on the subject. "Oh, you know, the usual. Wining and dining and fighting over scraps of power. You let him run off with Nathan? I hope he updated his life insurance policies beforehand? Medical coverage?"

He smirked at that. "I'm sure that's all part of the Elpis package--Angelo would've seen to that." He popped the last bite of cookie into his mouth. "It sounds like they're going to have fun, though. Not quite enough fun that I wish I'd gone, mind you." Not for all the bakeries in Manhattan. He was dreading the Important Conversation Jean-Paul wanted to have when he came back. "So, other than almost dying in Madripoor, do you have any plans for the summer?"

"Of course. You know me; busy, busy, busy," Adrienne answered with a smirk. "Other than tutoring for the summer, I'm occupying myself with a little project I've been tinkering with for a while- an all-mutants photo shoot and fashion show. Jean-Paul and I have discussed it briefly- I believe I have his support, and I hope I'll have yours?"

He eyed her across the table. "My support, absolutely. Unless you're still trying to talk me into modeling."

"Jean-Paul has shown interest in modeling," she informed him, in a cadjoling sort of tone. "And I'm a persistent woman, Stretch. I don't give up when I catch the scent of a good thing, much like you with a good dessert, I suppose."

He leaned back, shaking his head. "As crazy as the last few months have been, I think the fewer pictures of me in the world, the better." Because the last thing he needed was his father sending him more pointed messages via mail. "So, no. But if there's something I can do behind the scenes, well, we'll talk."

"As lovely as your own skin is, dear Gavin, you could always wear someone else's, could you not?" she suggested, not willing to give up her idea of having Jake model for her. She didn't even want to humiliate him, either. She just thought he had the sort of personality that lent itself well to the profession.

A sigh. "It gets complicated. I wear a different face, and then that's a profile I can't use anymore. I use a different name, and then suddenly talent agencies are asking after that mysterious up-and-coming model that no one's heard of before," he teased, although there was an underlying seriousness to his tone. "And then people start to try to figure out what you're covering up. I'd rather not risk it. Besides, I wouldn't want my beauty to give your other models an inferiority complex," he joked.

Adrienne raised an eyebrow. "Honey, I am the talent agency. No one else can touch you if you work with me and I say no. I don't understand why you couldn't just pick a face to use for the shoot, with no intention of making an actual profile." She didn't know much about the way metamorphs operated, but wasn't that something similar to what Morgan had done for Jean-Paul when she'd found Daniel? "And I may be wrong, but I think Jean-Paul would be offended by your saying that you'd give him an inferiority complex."

If there was one thing he didn't want to talk about with Adrienne right now, it was Jean-Paul. "Modeling in your show brings up complications I don't need," he said with a sigh. "Not while there are people actively trying to kidnap me. Sorry, but no."

"Kidnapping? What?" Green eyes went wide.

Of course, the only thing he wanted to talk less about at the moment than Jean-Paul was his arm. He wished he'd ordered another dessert so that he had something to pick at. "The people who...took my arm. It was stolen," he said, glancing up at her--it occurred to him that with her arm issues, they might not have discussed this. "The people who took it tried to kidnap Cammie and me a few weeks ago."

"Well shit, Gavin, you might have told me about this sooner!" Adrienne exclaimed, sounding contrite. "Of course you can't draw attention to yourself. Fuck." Why hadn't he just said that in the first place? She wouldn't have pestered him if he'd just said that straight off. "Your arm was stolen? Why would someone take your arm? Is that why Cammie wanted time off work a while ago?" The psychometrist sounded concerned.

"Because you want to hear about my arm?" he shot back, then regretted it. He took a deep breath and tried again. "That's what happened to it--I was attacked on a job and it was stolen, for lack of a better term. On Cammie's mom's behest, it turns out, although I didn't know that at the time." He fidgeted with his napkin, desperate for something to distract him. "Cammie's mom tried to kidnap me and convince Cammie to join her in whatever crazy scheme she had."

Adrienne left their table to go get more desserts. It gave her time to process what Jake had told her. She brought him two more cookies and sat down without any of her practiced elegance. "Look, what happened between us over your arm was... unpleasant, and that was my fault, and maybe your arm's still not the most comfortable topic for me, but you can talk to me about it," she informed him. Even if they weren't dating, she still enjoyed Jake's company, and it had been drilled into her head that people couldn't always handle their issues alone so if a... friend, wanted to talk about his arm being stolen, it seemed like she should let him, even if it was hard for her to hear. She wanted to be the kind of person who was strong enough to deal with unpleasant things without breaking.

"I still don't understand why anyone would want to steal your arm," she added. "Especially Cammie's mom." She hadn't known that much about the girl's past even after doing background checks- Cammie's mom sounded particularly fucked up. "Does Cammie's mom have an arm fetish or something? Did she do something to Cammie's arm to create her mutation, or something? Or is she experimenting on your arm to try and figure out how to fix Cammie's? Is she an evil arm-meddling mad scientist?" It was much easier for her to deal with things using flippancy and snark than cooing and petting and telling Jake how everything was going to be okay. Adrienne was shitty at comforting people.

Fortunately for her, Jake was much more comfortable with flippancy and snark. He smirked at that, breaking off a piece of cookie and popping it in his mouth. "She is, in fact, an evil arm-meddling mad scientist. Apparently I have valuable DNA--something about control on a cellular level apparently makes me irresistible to crazy women."

"Speaking as one of the crazy women, I must agree," Adrienne smiled, biting into her brownie. "You are very valuable to all of us. Possibly moreso if you could model for me, but sadly that seems to be an impossibility."

"It's a terrible blow to society, I know, but I have faith that you'll recover." He winked at her over his cookie. "Besides, I'd rather be anonymous. Mysterious, even."

"I think you have some competition in your circles for that whole 'International Man of Mystery' title, Stretch," Adrienne informed him in a regretful tone. "Wisdom, LeBeau... Doug." She grinned teasingly.

"Doug?!" he spluttered playfully, although there was a certain appraising seriousness that flickered through his gaze before disappearing, his curiousity piqued as to how much she knew of Emma and Doug's relationship. "I could beat him in the Mr. Mystery competition with one hand tied behind my back."

"Oh, I don't know," Adrienne teased some more. She was about to mention the fact that being a White Knight had to give a man some credential, but she wasn't sure how much Jake knew about Emma, Doug, and the Hellfire Club so she decided to be a bit more cryptic, and if Jake understood what she meant, all the better. "He looks pretty dashing and mysterious in a white suit."

That answered that. Jake took a mock-contemplative bite of his cookie. "Bah," he said dismissively. "Anyone can manufacture dashing and mysterious with the right clothes. But true Men of Mystery are born with it," he said with a grin. "It's that certain je ne sais quoi. Accept no substitute, or some such."

Adrienne laughed. "You're exactly right, of course. Are you sure I can't steal you away from Snow Valley and convince you to come work with me? You could be mysterious and anonymous, searching the world for that je ne sais quoi in men whom you'd convince to come work for us and make us rich."

Jake snickered at that, finishing off his cookie. "Ah, yes. 'Smile for the camera, little boy.'" He grinned at her. "What could possibly go wrong?"

"Smile for the camera and I'll give you a cookie or some other wonderful form of baked goods," Adrienne amended with a grin, "I have some here in my van."

"Ooooh, we'd need to get a van," Jake said seriously. "Preferably one with a unicorn airbrushed on it."