Doug and Amanda (backdated)

[x-cypher.livejournal.com]

Backdated to April 14th. Despite the tensions in the office after the events of Revenant, work continues to happen. Doug tries to drop off some files for Amanda and they have another argument about his involvement with the Hellfire Club.



Doug had been mostly... holed up wasn't entirely the right word, because he wasn't going out of his way to avoid his coworkers, but he wasn't going out of his way to seek them out either. Whatever the words for it, he'd been in his server room most of the day, but work didn't go away just because people were feeling touchy, or in his case, a bit defensive. He moved purposefully through the office, a flat businesslike look on his face and a rather full file folder in his hands. Maybe he'd get lucky and Amanda would be away from her desk getting food or something, and he could just leave the file in her inbox.

He almost made it. But just as he was about to leave the file and go, Amanda returned, carrying a sandwich bag and drinking from her cup of Coke through a straw. She stopped when she saw Doug, a welter of emotions crossing her face. Then, making a decision, she came forward and resumed her seat, setting her lunch down on the desk.

"Got something for me?" she asked, tone carefully neutral.

"The daily 'weird shit-o-meter' take," Doug said in the same businesslike tone, indicating the file in Amanda's inbox. "A bit of a slow day, but there are a few odd potentially mystical items in there." Amanda did more than review potential magic issues, but she was generally the first and most knowledgeable reviewer for those sorts of things.

He turned towards the door, then stopped. "I, ah...how are you feeling?" he asked, his fingers flexing minutely as he looked off into a corner of the room. She was looking much better, but still just the slightest touch of hollowed cheeks remained from Selene's draining ritual.

"Better than I was. You know how it is - the more you get used as a magical conduit, the easier it gets. Practice makes perfect and all." Her tone was the old "don't care" note that she'd used so often back in the old days at the school, after the love potion incident. "You? Still justifying bringing in Gambit's psycho ex into your little club?"

Doug had expected some kind of dig about the events at the Hellfire Club, though it did sting to see Amanda try to hide behind her old emotional armor. "You'd have rather seen Selene drain your little sister dry?" he asked mildly.

"There was a plan, remember? Kurt 'ported in, Nico broke up the spell, Meg got 'ported out to safety. We didn't need fucking Belladonna in on things." Amanda sounded more hurt than angry. "And even if you couldn't do shite about it, you should have said something about what was going on. Instead of standing there like a fucking shop dummy next to Emma watching the whole thing."

"At which point Selene calls on the Black Court to stand for her 'honor', and you have open warfare in the halls of the Hellfire Club, and god only knows how many dead. You? Me? Julian Keller?" Doug shook his head. "This way, only the person that we wanted dead wound up that way." He laid a subtle emphasis on the 'we', intentionally choosing the inclusive pronoun. "And how do you know I didn't?" he asked in the same mild tone. It wasn't precisely a lie, because he'd wanted badly to warn Amanda and Marie-Ange and the others, but... "The Black Court has telepaths. None as centrally placed as Emma, and I'm sure she would say none her equal in ability, but..." Doug waggled an open hand in midair as if to say 'maybe, maybe not'.

"At least an open war would let us know whose side people were on." It came out rather bitterly. "Because right now, if your Hellfire Club demanded that you stand back while Belladonna has another go at me, or at Nico or Meg, I'm not sure that you wouldn't do what they said, for the sake of fucking Court politics."

Doug blinked, his eyes narrowing at the accusation in Amanda's voice, and the lack of trust he sensed in it. "You think I'm loyal to the Hellfire Club?" he asked a touch incredulously. He held up a hand to forestall any retort Amanda might have shot back. "I don't believe in loyalty to organizations for their own sake," he said, picking his words carefully to try and make her understand his thoughts on the subject. "I don't have any loyalty to the Club qua the Club," he told her. "For that matter, I don't have loyalty to X-Force as some nebulous concept of a team in and of itself," he continued. "I have loyalty to -people-." He shifted from one foot to the other, gesturing passionately with his hands as he spoke.

"I have loyalty to you. I have loyalty to Marie-Ange. I have loyalty to Pete." If she was paying attention, she might have noticed the omission of Remy. "I have loyalty to Emma, because she and Marie-Ange were there to pull me out of Mastermold in the NYSE. If you think I have any kind of loyalty to Shaw or Belladonna..." He shook his head. "I trust them to be what they are, and no more. I trust Shaw to pursue power for its own sake at all costs, and I trust Belladonna to be a scorpion. But I would rather have that scorpion in front of me so that I can be ready when she tries to sting someone I -am- loyal to."

Amanda was quiet for a long moment as she processed what he had said. It wasn't unlike her own perspective, although she distrusted institutions as much as she was loyal to people. "I get that," she said at last. "But the problem is, what do you do when those people you trust don't agree? You didn't add Remy into that list of yours - where will you be when he and Emma finally have it out about the Hellfire Club? Because that's coming, even a blind badger could see it." She bit her lip. "The way I see it, Emma says "frog", you jump. Which is fine when what she wants is what the team wants. But it's not always the case - we saw that with this whole bollocks. So I hope you can figure out where people come in your priorities when she starts making you choose, because I've seen her do that before, with Manuel."

Doug snorted. "What reason has Remy ever given me to be loyal to him?" he asked Amanda, a harshness starting to creep into his voice now. "All Remy ever gives me are demands, or sidelong looks like he thinks I'm not good enough to do my job." He crossed his arms over his chest a bit defensively. "But you know what? Remy did teach me one thing. He taught me to do whatever has to be done, no matter shitty it is. I walked away and left a man to die because it was what he said I had to do."

He shoved against the wall he was leaning on with his shoulder, and moved to a standing position. "And this time, I did what had to be done to make sure that Selene got put in the ground without any collateral damage, and that a threat that was previously at large is in a place where we can keep a closer eye on her. Remy's just pissed because that threat is his ex-wife, so it's personal to him."

He walked to the door, then turned back. "Besides, Remy's not my boss. And until the man who hired me-" He didn't actually say Pete's name, but it was obvious who he meant. "-says I'm no longer welcome here, I'll keep doing my job to the best of my judgment, regardless of what Remy thinks of me."

"So that's what this is about? You think Remy doesn't think you're good enough to do your job? Even when he's had you out on the line in situations where a cock-up means we're all dead?" Amanda shook her head. "If Remy really thought you weren't good enough, he'd have you sitting on your arse manning the comms and doing computer shite, like the X-Men had you doing. He makes demands because he thinks you can do what he needs."

She picked up the file he'd left in her inbox, half turning away from him, before glancing back over her shoulder at him. "Oh, and another thing? Belladonna is Gambit's ex. Not Remy's. Think about that the next time you think Remy's putting personal before important."

Doug had no real answer for that, and like the last time he and Amanda had argued over his involvement in the Hellfire Club, he was left with the feeling that the might not ever see eye to eye on the subject. The surge of anger he had felt previously had drained completely away, and he left as quietly as he'd arrived.

Amanda sighed and sat down at her desk, pushing her lunch away - her appetite had fled after that conversation. Instead, she flipped open the file, glancing through its contents.

The card caught her by surprise, sitting there in the middle of the file in all its cartoony, birthday greeting glory. She picked it up, opened it and read the note inside. Then she sighed again:

"Fuck."