xp_logs | Marie-Ange and Garrison - backdated to April 13

Marie-Ange and Garrison, post-sex (er... and pre-sex) have a surprisingly serious conversation about the aftermath of Operation: Sanguinicity and Marie-Ange's time in New Orleans and then it just becomes baseball metaphors and innuendo.

"Well, that was... angry." Garrison said, turning over and propping his head up on his hand. They lay side by side on Marie-Ange's bed, the sheets rumpled and flung aside from the sex. She had always been an enthusiastic lover, but today, there had been a strange undertone, from her voice when she called him to the point that their bodies had finally stopped grappling. It was aggressive, almost with a need for violence that he hadn't encountered before.

Marie-Ange swept her hair off the sides of her neck, and then sat up, just slightly, with a pillow under her back. "I am sorry, I am not angry at you. I just... I returned to.." There was just no other word for it. "A clusterfuck. I come back and Bishop is off pretending to be Auguste Dupin, Jubilee is even of more a twit than usual and called me to get children out of Egypt, Remy hired Carmilla Black on and then he got himself kidnapped after we were setup by Nazis. For the second time.. Nothing has gone right, and I seem to have taken it out on you."

"Well, you can't actually hurt me physically, so I'm not a bad choice for it, eh?" Kane said, knowing that the scratches and bites would be gone in an hour. "I heard things went bad in Europe. It was actually a set-up? They know who you guys are?"

"Bad is an understatement. We still do not know where Remy is." Marie-Ange said. "I do not know what they know. I suspect it is people who already knew us, it is not the first time, ah, we have been setup by Nazis. The last time it was bees." Nazi bees. It made Marie-Ange want to scream, and there was a part of her wondering if she should suggest they vacate the office and brownstone, and part wondering if that was going too far.

"Nazi bees? Wow, suddenly the girl raised from the dead to carve me up seems a little dull." Kane shrugged. "Question. I could be wrong but you seem to be taking this from a leader perspective."

"Remy gave me an office. If Remy is going to give me an office, I am going to tell people what to do." Marie-Ange sounded just faintly sheepish. She'd just fallen into the role of pointing people in directions, and while she certainly was not alone in that, Wanda was doing as much if not more, with Remy gone someone had to, and she was good at it. "Someone has to. It may as well be me, I am good at bossing people around."

"I'm not terribly surprised. Don't take this the wrong way, but you remind me of Uncle Pete." He punctuated that with a brief, intimate caress, his fingers lightly skimming her body. "You're very hot, MA, but I have the feeling that if it was needed, you could leave me to die. That's not an insult."

"I told my cousin if he went back to Magneto I would kill him and hide the body." Marie-Ange said, no hint of humor in her voice. "I am not leaving you to die anywhere because we already agreed my ex-boyfriends were not allowed to die anymore." Which was not a denial, not exactly but sometimes there were things you just did not admit to someone, not when they were naked in your bed.

"Did I ever mention who my father is, eh?" Kane leaned forward to collect a kiss, but he had a thoughtful expression as he pulled away. "I have a feeling that I'm seeing the real Marie-Ange for the first time."

Marie-Ange walked her fingers down Garrison's arm. "I flirted with David Haller for your father so we could stop that Zemo person from making a volcano. He still owes me." Not that she did not like Haller but he was so very odd. "Perhaps. Perhaps not. I just think it is less important to try to hide anything now, not from people I know I can trust to not run screaming from the room."

"You'll be happier in the long run." Garrison said. He wasn't necessarily overjoyed that MA was cut from the same cloth as Pete, but he understood it. He also knew how hard the burden they carried was. "I know it sounds like rote, but if you need anything..."

"I should show up and impose on you like your father does?" Marie-Ange asked, with a half-smile. "But happy is not really a goal. At least I can tell myself I am not lying to friends on top of all of the other things I do." Well, not about who she was. Not talking about exactly what had happened in New Orleans and what she'd done to buy herself more time with the Guild, that was personal. They did not need to know.

"There's the job. I get that. You don't ever really put down the badge. I bet it's the same for the spy biz." Kane sighed. "Mind you, if this is imposing..."

"No, if it was imposing I would tell you. Or see if you were ticklish." She wasn't actually sure, with the reactive skin. Would he be? Marie-Ange was oddly tempted to find out. "I wonder sometimes if I could put the job away better if I did not live in the same building with the rest of my team, but it is what it is." And living in the Brownstone afforded them a few safeties that living in ten different buildings did not - like Amanda's wards.

"It would make it easier, but I don't know if it would be better for you. Connections are important, especially in what you do. Pete once told me he was afraid of thinking of people like things." It was odd, talking to a gorgeous young woman with that level of professional detachment. "I think if it's harder, it's important it stays that way."

Marie-Ange twisted in order to see Garrison better. "Pete is right, it is a terrible thing to think of people as assets to be bought and sold with contracts." Even the time spent with the Guild did not break her of the distaste for that. "Or threads in a tapestry or pieces on a chessboard or whichever metaphor people like. I would leave you to die but I would not like it and only if there was no other good alternative."

"Babe, you keep sweet talking me like that, I'm likely to propose." Kane leaned in, planting a kiss on her neck before continuing quietly. "Make sure it stays hard. That way, you might make the hard decisions, but you'll do it for the right reasons."

Marie-Ange couldn't help but laugh. "I am sorry, it is just there is an innuendo there and then I looked and did you -mean- to make that joke and try to imply you wanted to have sex again or was that a coincidence?"

"It was but..." Kane pulled himself up and grinned at her. "There are advantages to my particular mutation, if you don't mind delaying a drink after."

She didn't even need to think about it. Marie-Ange put a hand on Garrison's chest and then her fingers just ... wandered downward. "Is there a silly baseball metaphor for this? I never know." It was somehow easier to joke, knowing Garrison was still obviously interested. Even when she'd admitted what kind of decisions she could, and would if necessary make.

"Of course. We call this extra innings." Kane said with a quiet laugh. "And I'll stop there, because the next step is talking about bringing in the reliever and that just gets rude."