xp_logs | Bishop and Vanessa: X-Factor (Backdated)

Vanessa takes Bishop to the place she wants to turn into something more.

"I figured you might wanna see the place since Xavier and I just signed the papers on it. It's a lease to own deal and I'm hoping that eventually we'll make enough money that the agency itself will own it rather than Charles." Vanessa maybe needed to work on her issue with being beholden to people. She led Bishop up the flights of stairs to the top level. After unlocking the door she gestured the large man inside.

"Jean-Paul says I'm not allowed to paint it electric blue, neon fuchsia or sour apple green." She grinned wickedly as if she were considering it anyway. In truth Bishop probably knew her well enough to know she wouldn't touch a neon color unless under extreme duress. "Obviously I've got to furnish it, get a sign made for the door and outside, paint it something other than old, dirty was-once-white-but-is-now-grey and all but this is it."

"I prefer the classic white." Bishop's opinion on the color and ownership was easily summed up. "What's the sign going to say? We have a pitch or a name? I'll see if I can get us on line with the PD for when they have mutant problems. I don't think they've hired a mutant officer after me."

"Did you actually get your license yet?" She didn't like white. It was classic but it was also boring, bright and always gave her the feeling of a place not lived in. It was vacant and she didn't want to spend most of her day in a place that felt vacant. "No pitch, no real name. I mean, I could go with Carlysle Investigations to be a bitch, but I'm not the one getting a PI license and I don't think I really fancy having my name on the business that way."

"I'm not sure anyone would be able to spell it." Bishop looked oddly closely at the walls at certain points. "Aren't we obligated to start it with an X?"

"Oi, Carlysle isn't that hard to spell." Or at least it probably wasn't if you were Irish or Scottish. "Are we obligated to start with an X? Is that the rule? X-Men, Xavier, X-Force and XXX?"

"It is, isn't it? Because it's the X gene that defines us in the eye of the public." Moving on to the door frame, Bishop seemed to be inspecting some sort of minute security detail. "That sounded too technical for what I do." He turned back to face Vanessa.

"What, and we need to define ourselves by it, too? Is this going to be a mutant-only club here?" They were in the mutant neighborhood and she did specifically want to help the mutants here who maybe had no one else to help them because of what they were. She didn't like defining things by one little aspect of the whole. Vanessa tried to push that thought to the side while she watched Bishop. "Why are you inspecting the door frames?"

"Some door frames don't have the integrity to hold pins." Bishop pointed to the door frame near the hinges, then the door itself, to illustrate. "If it didn't then the door could be removed at the hinges pretty simply. It's a B and E trick."

"I knew you had a life of crime you weren't telling anyone about," Vanessa joked. The smile on her lips was small and she waved a hand in his direction. "Security detail us up, then." She'd already checked the place herself but he'd been a cop so maybe he'd spot something she'd missed. After all, Vanessa had mostly been the lock picking variety of illegal entry.

"It looks good. I'm sure you've done all the checking we need, I was just curious." Bishop turned back to her, at a loss for what to say which was a much easier way to explain why he was paying so much attention to minor details.

"I'd hate to see that curiosity itch go unscratched." It was somehow dirtier coming out of her mouth than it ought to have been, but Vanessa's smile was clearly platonic. "So, man-who-knows-the-naming-rules, what's our X-appropriate name going to be then?"

"You're deeper in the mutant community than I am." Bishop replied with a shrug. "I'm just trying to appeal to the people here so we get business."

"You're no use to me, you know that right?" A dismissive hand waved through the air. She was mostly joking. "Adrienne would have been useful for naming." But Adrienne had taken off to who knew where on no notice. "I don't think my amazing nicknaming abilities are quite what I need here."

"My friend recently left, too." Bishop said on an awkwardly serious note for the tone of the conversation. "Now I have to make emotional insights myself." He said with a slight laugh.

"Emotional insights are overrated. If I can go a week without having to think about my emotions I consider it a victory." Unfortunately, perhaps, Vanessa actually wasn't joking now. Emotions were for girls and she just wasn't the sort of girl who wanted to concern herself with them if she could help it. Particularly not with Adrienne gone.

"I'd avoid them if I could but then people would get overly aggressive or overly timid. I bring those two things out for some reason." Bishop was used to his own size and strength. He intellectually understood why people reacted the way they did but he didn't understand it on an emotional level.

"Maybe you could just not be a dick and that would solve it all," she suggested with a smile that clearly said she was kidding. Truth be told, Bishop really was kind of a dick sometimes, but no more than anyone else. In fact, she was probably a dick a great deal more often than him.

"That doesn't sound fun." Bishop replied with a casual, off-handed joke.

"We could work that into the tag line. Dick-Factor Investigations, where we're a bigger dick than your ex to harass them in the process!" Vanessa, of course, said this with a gleaming smile.

"Maybe we can go with a more subtle and mutant appropriate name like X-Factor Investigations?" Bishop replied with a short laugh.

"That doesn't sound fun," Vanessa parroted back his words from a moment ago.

"This kind of work rarely is." Bishop smirked at her witty response. It was the kind of conversation he enjoyed.

"Don't go taking all the wind outta my sails already!" She frowned at him. "I was planning to have an acrobat in the middle of the room doing a strip tease whenever clients came in."

"If you have the money for it or know someone that will do it." Bishop shrugged, playing along with her joke.

"Of course I know someone who'll do it. Met her when I was between boyfriends.'" She had the sort of tone which suggested this was obvious and Bishop should have seen it like a beacon of light.

"Your preference, then." Bishop smiled, trying to be more amiable than usual.

Vanessa grinned. "See, I knew you'd come around to me being the boss."