Lex and Adrienne - Backdated to Tuesday Evening

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

On a search for Driver, Adrienne visits the garage and runs into Lex. They discuss the reasons they are at the mansion, using powers for evil, and eventually the topic of Lex's journal indiscretions.

Lex let the spanner fall into the box triumphantly. He knew he'd been hearing a rattle in the engine of the jeep and had looked under the carburetor cap to see if he could identify it. Having tightened all the gas heads and returned the cap to its proper place he was pretty sure he'd fixed the problem. Now all he had to do was test it. He could go around to the cab and start it up properly or he could use his powers and figure it out immediately. He decided to do the latter, he needed to fine tune his abilities and starting simple seemed like a good idea.
Running his hands over the engine, he located the ignition block and let out a slight pulse of energy. The car started with a loud roar and Lex stood over it, listening for further rattling. After a few minutes he turned the motor off and closed the hood. Damn fine work, he thought, maybe Forge will let me work on some bigger projects.

"Why aren't you here? You were supposed to pick me up fifteen minutes ago. You're supposed to be taking me into the city!" Adrienne frowned into her mobile as she paced past the garage doors, then back again, one hand on the hip of her Vivienne Westwood pantsuit (Red Label, white with blue pinstripes, summer 2009 line.) "I've got a cocktail meeting to get to! Well, I don't want to fucking drive myself! I pay you to drive me! What's your fucking excuse? Wait, what? Really?" She frowned again, and removed her sunglasses as if that would help her comprehend what she was being told. "Shit. Well, yes, of course, then. No, I can drive myself. Stay at the hospital. It's fine. Christ, let me know what happens, yeah?" She disconnected and huffed out a breath, only then spotting Lex in the garage. "I fucking hate driving," she grumbled to him, sighing again.

"Hmmm," he grunted, wanting to reply with some witty comment on how it's so difficult being privileged. He turned around and stopped short, his words caught in his throat as he saw the woman who had addressed him. They really did make mutants beautiful these days. "I don't mind it, so long as there's nobody else on the road." He laughed, wiping his hands as he stepped forwards.

When he was sufficiently sure that he was clean he extended his hand to the woman, "I don't think I've had the pleasure. My name's Lex."

"Ah, yes. The man causing the stir on the journals," Adrienne smirked, glancing down at the hand warily, unsure whether touching car grease would react with the coating substance on her hand and somehow trigger her powers. After a moment she took it, shaking it in her businesslike way. "Adrienne Frost. And I completely agree with you about driving with nobody else on the road," she grinned. "Are you working as a mechanic at the mansion, Mister Lex?"

"Not exactly," he said, releasing her hand. "I'm just helping out here to keep myself busy, it's not a paid arrangement." He turned slightly, trying to avoid drinking in all of her features. She had very penetrating eyes, and he had a hard time pulling himself away. "Right now it's helping me practice my mutation, before I start training for the X-Men."

Adrienne raised an eyebrow curiously. "How interesting. Your powers consist of what? Shooting oil out of your hands? Antifreeze?" she smiled playfully at him. "Training as the X-Men wheelman, are you?"

"No, but if it'd allow me to fly the blackbird I wouldn't mind," he retorted, "And my powers consist of a few things, mainly allowing me to control electronic devises. I can start a car." He spoke as if divulging a highly classified secret, trying to feed off the playful state of his companion.
"And they're not hiring you as a wheelman?" the brunette asked with faux incredulity. "Your talents are wasted!" She was about to mention that he try the Trenchcoats to see if they needed a wheelman, but held her tongue, unsure as to how much this newcomer knew about X-Force. "I may know a crew in Salem Centre who might be looking for someone of your... particular talents to help with a big boost job soon," she replied in that same conspiratorial tone he'd used.

"Mmm, sounds delightful. There's just one hitch... I'm on parole here. If I fuck up, it's a long vacation in a small cell for me." Lex spoke with a joking tone, but something deep inside him knew that he really was only one mistake away from a SHIELD detention facility. He smiled, and changed the subject. "But, I couldn't help but overhearing that you needed a driver for the day..." He left it open, he didn't have much to do for the rest of the day, except go out and by more stuff for the luau.

"Really?" Adrienne held on to the word for far longer than necessary. "This place does seem to attract those of us in similar circumstances, doesn't it?"

"Apparently so," Lex said, quirking an eyebrow. He wondered what she'd done, and decided to ask her. "Not to pry, but what could a beautiful girl like you have done to get sent her on parole?"
"Not parole, exactly," she corrected, trying to weigh the consequences of telling him against bragging about it. He could go to the press. He didn't look like a spy of any sort, really. And Morgan and Lil were both familiar with him, so Adrienne was certain if he tried to sell anything she told him she could petition one of them to do something about him. "I'm here so the FBI can keep an eye on me. I hired someone to kill... somebody I didn't like very much," she explained, toying with her lighter in her pocket. "What about you?"

"I'm here because I was discharged from the military. Apparently hiding the fact that your a mutant has serious consequences." It was simple enough now that he looked back on it, if the military had a unit with the powers of the X-Men then they'd be nigh unstoppable. He shrugged, "I let my morality rule me, as I am prone to do, and revealed my mutation by crashing a military helicopter. Now I'm in Charles' custody and I'm going to make the best of it." Maybe Morgan was right. This was the best prison he could ever hope to have been sent to.

"Well, this is probably the best place you could hope to make the best of not being in jail," Adrienne told him with a nod and a smile. "I know I'd rather be here, cooperating with the FBI than being Big Bertha's shower buddy in prison." She wrinkled her nose. "Being a mutant counts for very little in a lot of circles," she sympathized. "You can't even use it for self defense when you justify hiring someone to kill somebody, you know? I mean, what's the point? You try to do something nice like reveal your mutation, or get rid of a scumbag, and they screw you over! It almost encourages us to use our powers for evil, doesn't it? If we can't use them for good?"

Lex looked at her, wondering if she meant what she said. He had no idea how to respond. "I don't know. It may just be me, but if I had the choice to use my powers for good or evil I'd stick to what I'm doing now. I mean, even if being evil were easier, I don't think I could live with myself. We weren't given a choice to be born the way we are, but we were given one on how to use them. At least that's the way I saw it when I saved those people in Pakistan." He knew how she felt, but that was the only way he could respond, something deep within him drove him to follow his own code, even when it didn't agree with anyone else's.

"Do they not teach people about sarcasm in the army? Or humour?" Adrienne asked him, bemused. "I was kidding, GI Joe."

"Sorry, you just happened to pick the one touchy subject I have." He sighed, maybe there was more than one, but he didn't feel the need to admit it to her. "Normally, I'm a very humorous guy. I've even been considered charming from time to time."

The brunette studied Lex up and down. "My jury's still out on that one," she murmured. "Especially because Lil's a friend of mine." A very odd, possibly mismatched friend, but somehow a friend. "So I'll believe charming when you're not fighting with her on the journals."

Lex shrugged, "Well, I should probably have guessed." He smiled, shaking his head. It never failed him, the moment he thought he was clear something always went wrong.

"Really? Why's that?" It wasn't as if she and Lil had anything in common other than the occasional hatred of men, after all. They didn't exactly run in the same circles. Why should he have guessed they were friends?

"Cause I can't seem to say I fucked up to enough people." He looked at her, he just wanted it to be over. "Look, I don't mind making enemies when I have to, but I really don't appreciate being turned into the bad guy because I mention that I'm not taking someone telling me they were using me as well as I thought I could." He knew saying that Lil was using him was a bit of an exaggeration, but it was how he'd felt after the fact.

He looked at her and forced a smile onto his face, "You know, it doesn't even matter. I'll let you make up your own mind."

"I usually do," Adrienne informed him with a simpering smile, which disappeared as soon as the words were out of her mouth. Her eyes flashed cold green steel at him. "I'm not your enemy, GI Joe. I didn't come here to declare war on you. This isn't Afghanistan, Pakistan, Madripoor, or any of those fun places. You're not at war anymore. This is a school. You did fuck up. You acted like a teenager on a public journal system at a high school. Hey, we've all done it. Those journals are notorious for it. Usually it's the actual teenagers acting like angsty teens, but more often than not it's an adult who should know better than to air dirty laundry in public. If you want to get all emo and bitch to the world about how a woman you've known what, two weeks? has been using you, it would serve you better to write a country song about it and get over yourself, and give up the idea that we're all out to get you. Grow up," she said on a laugh.

"You know you're not the first person to say that to me," he spoke with a defeated tone, "and I won't deny its accuracy. Just understand that I already know that I fucked up, and let me deal with it. Sorry I'm being an ass, but I'm really tired of people preaching to me from a soap box." He shrugged and turned back to the jeep. He'd been hoping she would have been more amiable, but upon hearing she was Lil's friend he'd lost all hope. Now he just wanted her to decide whether or not she wanted him to drive her somewhere.

Adrienne laughed again, shaking her head ruefully. At least he'd apologized for it. "I think you're completely justified in being an ass," she assured him. It didn't mean she liked him for it, but she did understand why he felt the way he did. She'd felt the same way when she'd inadvertently caused trouble on the journals."I just wanted to make sure you knew that if you're gonna be stuck here until you've served your time, you'd better get used to people preaching. It's the preferred hobby of a lot of people here. Piece of advice? Though I think you've figured this one out already. We won't preach if we can't read about how you fuck up. You write publcly about it, you're just begging to have people reigning down over you, all for the sake of 'trying to help.'" The fact that she'd lumped herself in with the other mansion-dwellers, that she was a 'we' instead of speaking about 'them', made her a little nervous.

"I'll make sure to keep that in mind." He said honestly, happy that she was being frank with him. He pulled the door to the jeep open and looked at her through the window. "I'm heading out, if you want a ride somewhere just let me know. Consider it my way of trying to break the ice that seems to have built up, and maybe give you a chance to see another side of me. What do you say?"

"I say I wouldn't subject you to waiting for me to attend a cocktail meeting with a dress designer," Adrienne laughed. "I'll probably be hours. I'm perfectly capable of driving myself, but perhaps another time?"

"Sounds good," Lex said, hopping in the jeep and shutting it's door, "I guess I'll see you around." He waved his hand over the steering wheel and smiled as the engine started.