Vanessa & Adrienne, then Morgan & Amanda | Friday

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Friday morning Vanessa shows up at Adrienne's office to get her anger off her chest and hopefully out of her system. Adrienne proves she can diffuse the metamorph like no other.

Putting the phone down after confirming with Amara that her meetings were indeed cancelled, Adrienne reached out to straighten a few things on her desk. Morgan had never been to her office before, and she wanted the place to make a good impression. She had been trying to get Morgan to visit for ages and was beginning to think the blue woman was a little bit afraid of coming to the modeling agency. Adrienne smiled at that, wondering if she should play with that notion and have some staffers walk in shortly after her friend's arrival to notice the stunning good looks (whether she was Aoife or herself) and try and recruit Morgan into modeling.

Except she vaguely feared for her staffers lives if they tried it. The text, albeit short, read to Adrienne as being the precursor of a tense, serious conversation. Morgan wasn't easily ruffled but Adrienne sensed something had upset her and while it was in Adrienne's nature to act casual and try to joke when people were upset, her general concern trumped her desire to be flippant about whatever was going on.

It was entirely possible Morgan had been a little short to the girl at the desk outside Adrienne's office. It was also entirely possible that not hiding the knife she was carrying on her a bit better hadn't helped. Morgan wasn't particularly in the mood to care, though. Nevertheless, the girl had shown the blue former mercenary to her mate's office and had abruptly fled. When she was in a better mood she'd probably want to do something to make it up to the girl. For now, though, she was trying to resist the urge to go hunt something just so she could feel it die. Maybe she was PMSing.

She knocked lightly on the door before opening it, not bothering much to wait for an invitation to enter. The office was what she'd have expected from Adrienne, professional, neat and attractive. It wasn't all that unlike the woman to whom it belonged, really. Morgan, however, shut the door behind her and then flopped unceremoniously into an arm chair facing the woman's desk. "The likelihood of me managing to kill Remy LeBeau is really low," she informed the other woman without preamble. "But I'm damn bloody willing to try a sniper bullet to the head right now. Higher chance of me pulling that off than a close contact kill."

"Well, you just said 'shoot someone' in your message so I wasn't sure if you were taking orders or had someone specific in mind," Adrienne shrugged, giving Morgan an 'indulge me and please don't kill me' smile. "Killing LeBeau, huh? What's the reasoning? Because the liklihood of me wanting to help is really high."

"Sefton's got a big fucking mouth and told the entirety of X-Force that Jean-Paul Beaubier is in town and that something was up with him. Yeah, cue LeBeau assuming the worst and issuing the directive that we are to find out why he left Muir Island, where he's been since and what he's been doing. The guy wants to be left alone and he should have that right. He should not have to deal with Jubilee trying to figure out how to tail him. Lucky for X-Force Jean-Paul is being an adult and not leaving town so they don't get their flags raised. LeBeau wants to be professionally proactive and paranoid about everyone that's fine, but he does not get to tell me to snoop around my friend's life when there's obviously something up that he might be hurting about. And you do not ask me to condone the rest of my colleagues fucking around in his privacy." She was irate, but it was that quiet, simmering kind of anger. Vanessa wasn't yelling. She wasn't raising her voice. She'd started off speaking rapidly but it had slowed to a precise enunciation with her hard consonants being clipped off. She let the taking orders comment slide because she knew Adrienne didn't mean anything about it.

Adrienne toyed with the medallion around her neck while she digested everything that Morgan-no, Vanessa, she realized- was saying. "Okay, first of all, I should say I'm glad Beaubier's back in town and I absolutely agree that assuming the something up is just a personal issue and not him really being evil or anything, he has the right to privacy if he wants it." That didn't mean she wouldn't be emailing him to welcome him back, but she wasn't going to seek him out or anything like that. "Secondly, why the hell is it any of the Trenchcoats' business what he does if he's not evil, which I'm assuming he isn't because you wouldn't be upset if he was actually evil and you caught a bad guy impersonating him? Which doesn't change the fact that if something really was up with him, why wouldn't Sefton tell Garrison? Get Alpha Flight, even the X-Men on it? Seems to me like they'd have a lot more claim to be interested in Beaubier than X-Force has any right to be. I get Amanda wanting to be cautious, but I think there were better people to deal with that caution and be slightly more balanced in their approach to dealing with the possibility of Beaubier being a danger than the Trenchcoats." It was like Amanda had deliberately fed him to the wolves instead of informing people who cared about him.

"But Amanda's bad decision aside," she added, sensing there was a deeper issue to her friend's mood, one that had caused the shift from Morgan to Vanessa, "she did tell your team, and your boss told you to snoop on Jean-Paul. Seems to me like that's something LeBeau does get to tell you to do after Amanda goes and makes Jean-Paul into a job for your team. Like you said, he's being professionally paranoid and proactive. It's his job. So he gave you a job to do. If you're not comfortable condoning what you have to do, I dunno, maybe you should reevaluate if you still want to work for LeBeau?" She shrugged and offered another 'please don't kill me' smile.

"When someone tells you that a person is a friend, not a job, then I think it sends a pretty clear message they want nothing to do with said directive," Vanessa replied in a flat voice. "There is a difference I don't expect you to know between what I am willing to do on the job and what I am willing to do off of it. I'm not willing to cross those lines, LeBeau says I have to. He claims there is no luxury to keeping your personal and professional lives separate if you want to keep the people you care about safe. At least when you're with X-Force. But honestly? I'm not willing to let my professional ethics and lack of morals bleed into my personal life. He tells me that I need to find out what my friend was doing when he seems pretty obviously to be hurting and I can't and won't get behind that." Which is why she had told Jean-Paul exactly what was up. Because she'd want someone to do that for her and you got what you gave in this world.

It was strange to think that while X-Force was fighting the good fight Morgan felt like she wasn't allowed to have principles with them. With Mág Ealga, though, her principles had never been a problem. If she wasn't comfortable with something because of a principle she wasn't the one who did that job. If she didn't want to take a job because of her principles then they didn't. It was that simple. Mág Ealga had each other's backs and they looked out for their own first and foremost. But then maybe that was only a luxury you got to have when you were killing people indiscriminately. Funny how that changed when you were fighting for the greater good instead. This would fall under the proper use of the word irony, Vanessa was pretty sure.

Adrienne raised an eyebrow. "I agree with you. I think you saying you want nothing to do with treating Beaubier as a job is a pretty clear message you don't want anything to do with the directive. I think I do understand that there is a difference between what you'll do on a job and what you'll do outside of a job." Not that Adrienne thought there should be, but that was besides the point. She had recently started to believe that there should be no line you would cross professionally but not personally. But she had operated with that line for most of her life and she did understand its existence. "So I say again: if you can't and won't get behind what your boss tells you to do, why keep the job?"

"Because I believed in the job." Past tense, never a good sign. "It kept people safe, it killed the bad guys. I get that you need to know who the bad guys are in order to fight them, but your entire life isn't your job. You need to learn how to separate them or you just see enemies everywhere. That's what LeBeau does, he sees enemies everywhere. I don't want to see them in my friends. I don't want to start being suspicious about every slightly odd thing someone does. I don't want to put a knife to someone's throat until they prove they aren't the enemy. I've killed plenty of people who didn't deserve it, but that was the job and I chose to take it. You take away my choice over which job I take and which I don't and what's there to check that we're not just paranoid? What is there to check that we aren't killing the good guys because we're too trigger happy and the intel we've got is misleading? Life's not facts and numbers, a lot of it is gut instinct." Maybe that was her problem. Morgan's head weighed in and got to have its say a fair bit of the time, but she was ultimately driven by her instincts. Instincts told you when to duck, facts just told you there was a gun somewhere.

"Vee, I didn't ask why you took the job. I asked why do you want to keep it," Adrienne reminded her gently, "if you don't believe in it anymore?"

"The job isn't the problem. LeBeau is." That was perhaps an oversimplification, but it was true. "The fact that Sefton sees X-Force as the answer to all of life's peculiarities is the problem. The job is fine, that I believe in. But the point was to use our powers for good, so to speak. Not to go fuck with someone's life when they have the right to privacy."

Adrienne let the Amanda comment go, since she didn't feel qualified to answer, not working with Amanda. "I hate to say this, Sassafrass, but if the boss is the problem, I don't know if things are going to get better as far as the job is concerned. He's the boss, he dictates how you use your powers. Metaphorical and literal. I say this with boss experience. If my employees don't like the way I run the ship, they find another ship. They don't try to change the policies of my ship. Because I'm a pirate captain and I would slit their throats if they tried. If LeBeau's the problem, you're stuck on a reef." She was running out of ocean metaphors. "What can you do? Try to get the rest of the crew to mutiny with you and overthrow LeBeau so you can do the job according to how you see fit? Change LeBeau's mind about how to use the powers? I can't see that happening," she muttered, making a face. "I don't know what you can do other than swallow your convictions and suck it up when he asks you to do your job, quit, or keep toeing the line until he decides he can't trust you to do any job and fires you. Shit, I should have made that into some sort of pirate metaphor."

Vanessa was struggling with what Adrienne had said. Mostly because it was damn hard to keep a straight face when the woman referred to herself as the pirate captain. It didn't take long for her expression to begin to crack. By the time Adrienne had cursed herself for not making the last bit into a pirate metaphor she was laughing. "I hate you," Vanessa told her without conviction. "You make it damn hard for me to keep being surly." Though she knew she was still pissed about how things had gone down. "But you're right. Either I toe the line, I bail or I decide my convictions aren't worth maintaining. I've just got to figure out which." She was inclined toward the first two. Vanessa was stubborn, jumping ship on what convictions she had wasn't really something she was interested in.

"You wouldn't be you if you didn't maintain your convictions," Adrienne pointed out, Vanessa's point about hating her making her grin. "I know you don't like to quit anything but I'd rather see you quit than compromise what you believe in. The idea of you spying on your friends just doesn't sit well with me. Even though all my books are clean and I haven't hired any contract killers in years."

"Doesn't sit well with me either, cupcake." Vanessa was frowning now. "If nothing is off limits then how does anyone trust you? If I'm spying on Jean-Paul and anyone ever finds out then why would anyone ever trust me again? Why would anyone decide being my friend was worthwhile? And why should I expect them to? My friends mean more to me than the job, even if the job in and of itself is honorable. I don't like the tactic that nothing's off limits."

Adrienne nodded, not bothering to agree out loud with Vanessa, since she was of the belief that Vanessa wouldn't count her as a friend if she didn't agree so therefore she would already know Adrienne agreed without Adrienne having to say it. "Well, if you do decide to quit, the penthouse upstairs is vacant, and I'm sure you and I could haggle over the terms of the rent. Free rent in exchange for a cover shoot, maybe?" she grinned.

Red eyes narrowed to slits at once. "You're still after that?" Then her expression relaxed into something far more considering. "If I'm unemployed I might have no other choice. At least I have career options." She was hoping she could find something a little more in her field, though, if she did quit. Life as a model? Not really Vanessa's thing. But Adrienne sure did love teasing her with the prospect.

"When have you ever known me to let something like that go?" Adrienne smirked. Vanessa would know she was teasing anyway. "So why did Zeus think something was up with Beaubier? Is he alright?"

Vanessa shrugged. "Something's not right. He's got powers issues, it's why he came back. I'm not sure if that's all of what's wrong or not. He looks...haunted, sort of. He shaved his head, he's got the manly scruff thing going on. He doesn't look bad. Actually he looks sorta," she trailed off, frowning. "He looks sorta underfed. But he looks very different. It's possible I'm trying to fatten him up via pastry. But he wants to be left alone," she added quickly. "Nothing personal. Pretend you don't even know he's around. He doesn't wanna be around people much."

Adrienne gave Vanessa a Look. "When have you ever known me to go running to people to help them sort out their lives? I'm getting better with this whole 'caring about people' thing, but I'm not that good at it yet. I might email him to say I'm glad he's come back to New York, and if he wants my help at any time he's more than welcome to it because I do care about him a little bit, but I get wanting to be alone. And I know you won't let him be too alone. You won't let him drown himself or pilot his boat alone or whatever it was you said last year about Kane in the context of proper friend etiquette. You should bring him that newest donut from the stoner bakery," she added suddenly, "it's heavenly."

Vanessa shrugged and put up her hands in a gesture of surrender. "People have been pulling one-eighties on me who I wouldn't have expected it from. I shouldn't go assuming things. 'Cause that e-mailing him thing? That's what I'm talking about. Seriously, unless he ends up announcing his return on the journals or you run into him at the mansion just leave it be. No welcome backs. When you come back because your powers are fucked up there's nothing really welcoming about the return." It was only welcoming when you chose to come back, completely free of necessity. "I'll make a mental note on the doughnut."

"There are too many rules to this friend thing!" Adrienne mumbled in an exasperated tone. "I want to be supportive but respect his space and even emailing him is too invasive- though I didn't say I was going to use the phrase welcome back, just so you know- but how else can I be supportive? Doing nothing will just make him think I don't care!" She pondered this for a moment. "Can you tell him the doughnut idea came from me, at least, but that I'm respecting his need to be alone so I'm not contacting him, or is that too invasive too?"

"Maybe it will make him think no one's told you about him and it's not about not caring but not knowing. Or that I told you to leave him alone because I told him no one would be bugging him. But I can tell him the doughnut is from you." She figured Jean-Paul wouldn't mind Adrienne knowing he was around as long as Vanessa kept the woman away from him.

Much later in the day Morgan shows up at Amanda's apartment as requested. It doesn't exactly go well.

Talking to Adrienne earlier in the day had helped to calm Morgan down considerably. Her best friend managed to have that effect on the former mercenary, and usually without really trying to. That was a very good thing for Amanda because it meant that by time a blue hand was rapping its knuckles against her door Morgan was no longer inclined to kill someone. She was still irritated to high heaven, but it was entirely possible she wouldn't actually punch the Brit for sticking X-Force's nose in where it didn't belong.

Sitting on her couch with various books and papers scattered all over, Amanda winced at the tone of the rapping. The metamorph was still royally pissed off. Oh well, she'd asked for the meeting... "Come in!" she called, pushing aside some texts, and heading to the kitchen where she was pulling a couple of beers out of the fridge as the door opened.

Opening the door, Morgan walked in just far enough to close the door behind her. Then she leaned back against it. Clearly she didn't anticipate this taking very long or going very well. Despite having calmed down a fair bit, she still wanted to ask where the fuck the Brit's brain had gone and maybe throw her out a window for her act of stupidity. Maybe she hadn't really calmed down, just started to seethe more quietly.

"Beer?" Amanda offered hopefully, coming back into the living area. "You could always use the bottle after to stab me in the face."

"It's not in your best interest to make that offer," was the only response the blonde got.

Everyone was a critic. Amanda sighed and set the second bottle down on her coffee table, shoving over some notes she'd been making on Nico's family. "Would you believe I didn't mean for any of this to happen?" she tried, leaning against the couch arm. "I was worried, didn't want a panic from the mansion, so I figured I'd let the people who I trust to be discrete know what was going on. Both with J-P and with Nico. It wasn't about not trusting either of them."

"You used a work forum to air information which was, at least on Jean-Paul's end, none of anyone's fucking business. He's not even friends with anyone else you put that out to. A man who obviously came back for help with something and who is obviously hurting over something had business which is his and no one else's aired to a bunch of people who mean fuck all to him. You call that good judgement? So LeBeau decides 'hey, he might be evil' and sets the entire fucking team to digging through his life like he's an enemy." Vanessa stopped, biting down on the inside of her cheek and taking a deep breath. She would not throw Amanda out a window. She wouldn't. It'd be a bad plan. It'd involve battery charges. She didn't need to develop a police record.

Once she'd pulled her temper back a bit again Vanessa considered her words. "Nico is something your colleagues should be aware of because if the untrained magical girl with the staff in her body blows something up innocent people could get hurt. But Jean-Paul is not something they needed to be made aware of. He wanted to be left alone and you should have respected that. If you were so worried then maybe you should have figured out how to be a fucking friend to him instead of getting him put on the Snow Valley to do list."

"And keeping an eye on things that aren't usual is what we do, no matter who it is," Amanda replied, an edge coming into her voice. She didn't appreciate being treated like an idiot. A bitch, yes, but not a moron. "And how Remy reacted is up to Remy. I'm not his soddin' keeper. I tried to talk to J-P, he blew me off in a way I've never seen him act before. He looks completely different. He left Muir - where his sister and Shiro are, people he cares about - without a word to anyone as far as I can tell and he's hanging around New York without getting in touch with his friends who are here. None of that is usual and the last time anything like that happened, it was with me going off to make deals with Selene and that wound up with Alison nearly dying and me having to kill someone close to Nate to bring her back. So yeah, I was worried. I also know I have sod-all perspective about this sort of thing, so I went with the people I trust and gave them a head's up. That was all."

"You could have talked to me first. Because he didn't just blow me off. And maybe you've never had anything happen that made you go into upheaval with how you look or act but I have. I get it. And did you ever stop to think that maybe there was shit going on that Xavier knew about? But you didn't bring any of it to him, did you? No, you brought it to people who have no frame of reference for dealing with him in the first place. I get that maybe you don't owe loyalty to anyone outside of this organization so you don't care when the people here rip apart someone's life to find out all their secrets in the name of protecting them, but I do." And that was really what it came down to for her. Vanessa had given Jean-Paul her loyalty a while ago. She'd put him in that box she put her closest friends into. And that meant a world more to her than doing a job did.

"I'm going to tell you the same thing I told Remy last night. He's a friend, he's not a job. If the only way you know of to watch out for someone you're concerned about is to make him into the job then I'm very sorry for you. I had every intention of looking out for him and finding out what was up. But letting LeBeau turn it into an X-Force initiative wasn't the way I was going to do that. You attract more flies with honey than vinegar. Think about that the next time you're busy being vinegar happy. 'Cause what if he caught on and it drove him away when he needed help from someone who could have given it? But you didn't think about that, did you?"

Amanda looked at her with her mouth open. "'Maybe I've never had anything happen that made me go into upheaval with how I look or act'? Didn't you listen to me? I just fucking well told you exactly why I was worried, because I have been through that and I bloody well wish someone had bothered enough to stick their nose in, since it would have meant a lot less grief!" Her voice shook a little. "Talking with J-P... it was like talking to a stranger. And after that whole business with Taygetos, I figured it might be safer to poke around the edges first before going in with my size nines again, just in case they'd left some kind of remote trigger or something. I thought I was doing the right thing, and I'd do it again. I'm sorry you're upset about it, but maybe that's 'cause he's your friend and not mine. Not for a while now."

Obviously Amanda had not gotten the point of Morgan making that comment so she didn't bother to clarify. Instead she just shook her head. "Not everyone's you, Sefton. And there are better ways to go about it than saying something that gets X-Force mobilized." Amanda obviously didn't get that, though, so saying it again was pretty much like talking to a brick wall. "Yeah, he's my friend and that means a fuck lot more to me than a job does."

"And for some of us, the job is all we've got." Suddenly weary, Amanda ran her hand through her hair, pushing it out of her face. "Look, I'm sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing. I didn't know Remy would go all paranoid on it, at least not as much as he did. Maybe I should have, considering what Lorna did to him once when she was mind-whammied. I should have talked to you, maybe, before I said anything." Or at least talked to Remy in person, instead of using the comms.

That comment about the job being all she had softened Morgan's anger a little. She still didn't think Amanda had made the right call, but now she was busy pitying her for being a bit pathetic. Seriously, all she had was the job? Morgan guessed being single with friends outside of the team didn't count for much. Or maybe Amanda didn't see herself having many friends outside of the team. That was really sad.

"I'm protective of my friends," she finally said in a much calmer tone. "I don't go in for people fucking with them or going against their wishes. And I'm going to react violently every time someone does it. I can't beat the shit out of LeBeau for it and live to tell the tale so my usual means for righting the wrong aren't there. He's my boss, I can only talk back to him so much." Which meant she either had to shut up or no longer be his employee. "But it was you who did it. I get you made the wrong choice but...it's a little like being betrayed that it was you who said something and started it all. And I'd just told him no one would bother him. So much for that."

"I'm sure you would have told him I blabbed so if he wants to take it up with me, he can," Amanda said with a sigh. "I'm sorry I didn't talk to you. I've just learned... sometimes what people say they want isn't always the best thing for 'em. Wasn't for me when I told everyone to leave me alone and let me sort my powers issues out myself." The witch gave a one-armed shrug. "Then again, I've got a different perspective. I also have to tell a sixteen year old girl that her family's got a bloodline in black magic going back at least three generations, which means any time she wants to go off and have some time alone, I have to keep an eye on her to make sure she's not going evil on me."

"I didn't say anything about you to him except when I told him that you'd told me you'd run into him. That's all the mentioning of you I did." She was sure he'd figured it out, though. He'd spoken to Amanda and Morgan, that was it. Unless he really thought it was Morgan who reported back about him then he knew the only other possibility was Amanda. Maybe he wasn't bothering to think about that in general, though.

"Sometimes what people say they want really is what's best for them, though," Morgan pointed out. "When I tell people to leave me alone it usually comes with an unspoken agreement that if you don't I will have a gun pointed at you or a knife to your throat. And I will. Good thing he's more mellow than I am." And thank God for that, really. "You can't assume anything. I know that's LeBeau's point, but assuming wrong can do more harm than good. It didn't this time but I expected it to. I could've lost a friend because of my job. Because it's policy of assuming nothing meant assuming incorrectly." She shrugged, but it was obvious Morgan didn't think the possible repercussions were worth the price. If it turned out he'd needed her or that she could have helped him and that opportunity had been lost because she'd needed to prod him for LeBeau? Her resignation already would have been handed in.

If he worked it out and wanted to deal with her, he knew where to find her - she wasn't one to run away, at least not any more. "Well, that's where our experiences aren't the same, inn't it? Most times when someone's told me they want to be left alone, it's all gone pear-shaped. And people got hurt." Crossing her arms over her chest with the beer bottle still in one hand, Amanda looked back at Morgan with a certain kind of resignation. "I've got to admit, I'm wondering if I've lost a friend 'cause of the job, myself." She didn't want to assume anything, but Morgan's anger - and inability to see the other side of things - didn't make her hopeful. Well, it was one way to deal with a hopeless attraction.

Mercenaries, Morgan thought, were obviously far more simple to deal with. They didn't end up inhabited or possessed. They didn't lose their principles unless they chose to. They were allowed to have them in the first place. Vanessa knew her guys would always have her back and support her. If she told them something couldn't go down a certain way they'd find another way to do it. If she called them today and said she needed them she knew Eamon would find a way out of their contract and be here. She wasn't so sure X-Force was as reliable.

As for Amanda, she just shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe." It was entirely possible she'd calm down a lot in the coming days. And it was also entirely possible she'd never believe she could trust the witch ever again. Without trust there was no such thing as friendship, that was for sure. "Guess I'll have to figure out if I still trust you or not." At least she wouldn't lie about it.

There was a flicker in Amanda's eyes, the only indication of how deep that particular statement had gone. Shades of returning to the school after Selene and facing the damage she'd done. "Fair enough," was her reply, however, as she took a swig of the previously untouched beer in her hand. "I can't expect anything more 'n that, I suppose."

Morgan had caught that look in the other woman's eyes and normally that would have counted for a lot. She wasn't sure it still did. "Not when everyone's a suspect." That comment was meant to cut. Because if everyone was a suspect then no one was your friend. Not really. There was too much faith involved in friendship. You had to be willing to close your eyes and fall backward and trust the other person would catch you. And now Morgan knew that no one she worked with would catch her unless they were entirely certain she was herself. If she was herself and they weren't certain of it? She'd end up on her ass at best. Morgan pushed away from the wall and turned to go. "Have a nice night, Sefton."

Amanda just nodded as the other woman left, then turned to the pile of work on the coffee table. "Not really," she said, before sitting herself down and getting back to the task of potentially shattering a young girl's life.