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xp_logs2011-10-13 12:20 pm
x-siryn.livejournal.com) wrote in xp_logs2011-10-13 12:20 pm
LOG: Terry & Kane, Terry & Bobby
Backdated to Thursday.
Terry returns, and the first face Terry sees is a friendly face. Sort of.
John F Kennedy Airport was a vast, sprawling complex, and like most travellers, few realized that like a small city, it had it's own fire house, police department, and specifically in Theresa Cassidy's case today, a prison. While her Interpol identification had bumpd her up from the normal security drones to the upper management, it still didn't change the fact that somehow her name was on a watch list. The second they ran her passport, an alarm went off and left her cooling her heels in the security office.
After an indeterminate time, the door opened, with Kennedy's security chief in front, and a familiar face behind him; Garrison Kane. The Canadian was dressed in a plain suit and tie, with his FBI credentials pinned to his jacket.
"Pissed off yet, Cassidy?" He said, a wry grin on his face.
She of the name broke off her scowling long enough to look up and roll her eyes ceilingwards with an exaggerated sigh. "Well, if it isn't Kane Himself, come from on high to harass the unfairly detained." The last was said with a withering look at the security chief. Terry set the chair back down on all four legs with a thump and pushed up out of the seat, folded arms falling apart so her hands could find purchase on her hips. She looked back at Kane and lifted her brows expectantly. "Please tell me you are here to be doing more than that though?" she sAid waspishly.
"What, you mean to make nice with a paranoid security chief and convince him you're not an IRA plant posing as an Interpol agent?" Before she could answer, he held up A hand. "It's already done. We think it was someone at State making a point to Interpol. Fred just got off the phone with INS and Customs. You're clear to go. I've got a ride outside."
"And he believed you? Paranoid security chiefs are so gullible these days." Terry flashed a grin, then bent to snag up her bag and hoist it onto her shoulder. "Nice place, but you could be doing something with the decor," she offered to the the poor maligned chief before passing out of her temporary holding cell. With a growl deep in her throat and a stretch, Terry fell into step alongside Kane, giving him a sidelong look as she pulled her hair out of her eyes. "Been a while," she said neutrally after a moment. "Are you part o' the point as well?"
"If I was, we'd be having this talk during your strip search at the hands of Olga... the one with the abnormally big wrists." Kane joked. "Officially, I'm your welcome to the Bureau. Duncan worked out the paperwork today. So you'll have the title of Special Agent for the duration of your secondment from Interpol to the Bureau. You'll be tasked as part of Fred's division with me, but on loan to the RICO task force that Tom Cassidy is Mixed up in the investigation until the conclusion of it."
Terry donned an expression of sly innocence, and murmured, "Garrison Kane. I would noT have been thinking that was your kink." She crinkled her nose and looked away at the 'scenery' they passed, then nodded to acknowledge his information. "Not the first cooperative I've been on, but seems a good arrangement. I'll be wanting access to the information they have gathered soonest..." With that she trailed off, suddenly looking every bit the tired traveler in her rumpled professional wear.
"Access to information will be granted by the task force commander, Terry. It's his call how much he wants to share with Interpol." He reminded her, hiding towards the parking garage. Thanks to the badge, his leperous white Crown Victoria was parked in a no parking area right by the door, allowing her to reach it quickly and without the normal choatic bustle of the airport parking.
Terry sighed. "O' course it is. And it's my call to press for more. Bloody territorial squabbles." She arrived at the car's side and snorts back a sour laugh, looking it over. "Really rolling out the red carpet, to be sure. From security detention to security transport. What is next?" Reaching for the front passenger door, she glanced into the back seat and hauled the door open.
"It's not nice to make fun of my car. You know, I could have made you take a cab." Kane opened the door and slid in behind the wheel. Before he started the engine, he reached into the case he'd been carrying and pulled out a smaller black, zippered case and passed it over. "Badge, security ID, and a holster 10mm with two spare clips. You will need to qualify at the pistol range this afternoon before you can wear it in public."
Terry checked the case, visually inspecting the contents for herself before twisting in her seat and stowing it in the bag she'd shoved into the back. "Sure enough. What else?" She settled back in her seat, turned a bit sideways to face him a little better, then pulled the seatbelt into place. "Do not get me wrong, I am dazzled and delighted by the escort and fanfare..." She patted the dashboard of the car, and flashed him a strained smile. "But is this standard procedure?"
"Oh, you normally would have been met, but considering your background, Duncan wanted me to take care of it. Us Xavier-types have been under a bit of a cloud in the whole SHIELD - FBI dick fight that's been going on for the last few months." He checked his mirror and pulled out into the road. "You'll be clear with the Task Force, but for general duties, just like me, you'll get saddled with Agent Abigail Brand. And never was a larger ladder-climbing SHIELD pain in-the-ass presence than her. Consider me the advance warning."
"Wonderful," Terry muttered, shifting and sinking down in her seat with folded arms. "Just what I was needing. /Another/ arse-kisser t'twitch m' tail," she grumbled, accent becoming more pronounced. "Some days, I am thinking that X in m' background is just a giant cross-hairs."
"Part of the job, Cassidy. Crying about it doesn't help." Kane said as he pulled into traffic. "And be careful with Brand. She's not your typical brownnoser, and she's very smart. A wrong move could find you back in County Cork with a permenant DFA out of law enforcement. I've already risked a one-way ticket back to Toronto against her."
"Once burned, is it, Kane? Don't worry. I am not here t' stir shite with SHIELD. I'm just here t' be a good little drone." The glint in Terry's eye and the set of her jaw belied her words though.
"I'll believe that when I see it, eh?" Kane said as they merged into the traffic on the exit from the airport, in towards the city and the FBI Field Office. "You staying at the mansion while you're here?"
Terry's quiet answered, her hand suddenly plucking at the crease in her pants. "That is the plan," she said, the pause long enough to be called a hesitation. "At least until I can... get settled."
The unspoken question about her and Bobby's status was just answered with a resounding 'who knows', Kane considered, angling away from the topic as soon as possible. " Well, when you're finished with the paperwork and the requalification, give me a call and I'll give you a lift home. You'll probably look like a mobile pile of file folders with the amount of material the RICO investigation is bound to throw at you."
Very deductive, Special Agent Kane. "You don't have to be ferry me about," Terry demurred, pulling her hand up from her pants and flipping it over in a deferring gesture. She paused in consideration of the mental image he provoked, then admitted, "But I will not deny the offer again," looking across at him sidelong as she does. "Anything else of note?" she added after a moment, leaving the distinction between professional and personal up to him.
"You can take a cab if you really want, but it's an expensive ride out to Westchester." He noted, already caught up in the city traffic. "I'me sure you can grab one of the pool cars from the garage for tomorrow if you'd rather drive yourself. Personally, I can't imagine why you'd rather ride in a high end sedan instead of a properly battered and used fine former patrol car like my baby here." He was only mostly kidding. Kane's distain for the more expensive cars favoured by some at the mansion was no secret.
"As for anything else going on... well, that is a much longer discussion. Suffice to say, the FBI orientation will likely be the sane one you'll have today."
"Oh, now isn't /that/ filling me with happy thoughts," Terry said dryly, lifting her hands to twist her hair up into a makeshift twist secured by pressing the back of her head against the headrest. "I would be grateful if it tis you driving the padded wagon this evening." She patted the door handle softly and closed her eyes, stealing one last peek from under her lashes cover.
"I had my white jacket pressed especially for such an occasion."
You know, there may be a reason Bobby and Terry are having relationship trouble. Welcome home?
It was late enough by the time Theresa had escaped the paperwork and testing at the FBI and been able to take Kane up on his offer of a ride home that she half-expected to find Bobby in his suite. "Home," she snorted to herself as the label for the mansion crossed her mind while digging through her bag. "Suppose it is the closest thing." She wasn't /precisely/ unpacking, but closing in on 20 hours of travel and bureaucracy had left her with a headache strong enough to make even one with a healer mutation cry and a desperate desire to crawl into comfortable clothes. The bed was strewn with her travel suit and a bag of jewelry, make-up, and medicine while she sat in the middle in jeans and sweater, a file folder open on her lap.
Bobby Drake was exhausted. After the massacre of a season's end by the Red Sox, he had been spending more and more time at the bars in the local area. This also had meant that he was spending more and more time in the rekindled friendship he had shared with Amanda. Of all his drinking buddies, the witch was the one who he had spent the most time being himself around, and the one who had truly been there during his ups and downs of the past year. It was from one if their excursions that he was now returning to his suite at the mansion. His eyes half closed, he flung himself towards the door, and nearly collapsed as it fell open, and he stumbled in. Still dazed he took a few steps in, letting the door swing closed behind him before he realized he wasn't alone in the room.
Drake's mind instantly shot to panic mode and before he could stop himself, his entire body had shifted to organic ice, and he had taken a few shuffled steps backwards. Only then did he recognize the red hair just in front of his face. Cocking his head to the side his words escaped with a faint trail along with a hint of confusion. "Terry?"
Terry pulled a knee up and braced an elbow on it while she pulled that red hair back from her face. She had gone very still at the sound of the door opening, face draining color and mobility as her lips pressed together in a tight line, throat closing up to catch her breath. How ironic that the siryn couldn't speak at the moment even if she wanted to, Terry thought to herself. She scrutinized him in a hard, fast look as he stumbled in, taking in the details that she could before he noticed her, then watched the shifting with a carefully held stilllness to give him less to react blindly to. Not until Bobby spoke did she drag in a breath and attempt a small, strained smile. "Hello, fear céile," she said, shoving the file off her other knee and rocking forward to crawl to the end of the bed.
Bobby quickly shifted back into his normal form, and took a few steps forward with an awkward smirk. "What in the..." He coughed as he tilted his head to the side. "What are you doing here?" The seemingly harshness of his words hit them immediately with regret as he closed his eyes tight and pursed his lips together. He held his hand up in front of his face defensively. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for it to come out that way." As he opened them, he did his best to lighten his tone, as he jammed his hands into his back pockets and took a few steps forward. "I mean, I just wasn't expecting you in the States." He titled his head forward. "Is there something up?"
Terry narrowed her eyes at the tone, lips crimping together to prevent the response leaping to tongue from escaping. See how she's grown? She crawled off the bed and straightened, taking a step toward him as well but stopping just shy of actually being within arm's reach. She hugged herself and shifted her weight to one foot, hip cocked out. "I should have let you know, I know. I'm--" She stopped and made a face, unwilling to get into the details of how she managed to get herself here just yet. "I'm here on assignment," she said simply instead, her accent county-fresh. "For a while, maybe." She paused and the fingers on her arms pressed divots into her skin. "How've you been?"
Drake stuck out his chin in the awkward "cool guy" move that he saw in the movies. "I've been good." He looked up at Terry, and realized that he felt like a stranger in front of his own wife. Leaning back he tried to recall the events of the past few months. The missed phone calls back and forth. The hurried times they actually got in contact with each other because one or the other had to run off for a mission. And of course the conversation of Bobby's "incident" with Amanda that hadn't really come to a conclusion. Sure Bobby felt horrible about it. He wanted to bring it out in the open. To settle things right now. But instead he fell back onto work. "An Interpol mission? How is work by the way?" Even though Terry might have changed a lot, Bobby Drake seemed to be stuck just the same at times.
They were strangers, for all intents and purposes. Terry stretched her fingers before they clamped down on her arms again. She grimaced at the question, the expression fleeting, but apparent. "Grand," she lied, glancing away. "Coordinating with the feebers on an investigation." She dropped her hands with a bit of force and turned halfway from, standing in profile so she could look back at the bed and her things on it, shoulders slumped. "I have a bit o' reading to do on it."
Bobby was frozen for a bit as he tried to take in the words of his wife. It was easy for him to pick up the lie. Even after all this time apart, she couldn't look him in the face and lie apparently. He started to attempt to comfort her. "Look you can talk to me..." But he suddenly froze again as he reached his hand forward, and it glanced against Terry's skin. It was only briefly, but long enough for him to notice the spark, mixed with the awkward feelings. His eyes fell to the floor to mirror hers, and his hands went right back in his pockets. "If you need to be alone to read, I can... I don't know... head down to my office and do some lesson planning." It was nearly a joke. After months apart from his own wife, he was offering to desert her again.
Terry leaned toward him at the contact, brief though it had been, and as small as the shift in weight was. She looked at him, turning her shoulders slightly, eyes widened in silent questioning until his own fell and he offered to leave. She snorted and stuck her fingers into her hair to pull it back from her face with aggression. "As if you did not come tumbling through that door looking in desperate need of your bed." Terry turned back to the bed and leaned over its foot, gathering up the small mess she had already managed to make on it. "I am done with the reading for tonight anyway. I'm knackered and feeling as sharp as a beach ball. Was just waiting on you. Where've you been?" she rattled on until her things were shoved into the bag. Task finished, she went still and slowly turned around, looking almost shy as she glanced around the room a moment before settling back on him. The bag strap stayed in her hand and the tips of her fingers moved across the ridges in nervous movement. "I should be the one going." It was half-question, half-offer.
"Oh I was just out..." He raised his hand up to rub underneath his nose for a second. "Grabbing a drink with a few friends..." He knew she could easily ask who the friends were, but he thought it might be better to avoid the topic than get into a messy discussion that was sure to come if she found out exactly who the "friends" were. The conversation between Bobby and Terry on his almost kiss with Amanda last year had always been left hanging in the air without a real conclusion. And now, as his wife seemed to be in town for a few weeks at least, might be the perfect time to have that conversation. But instead he let out a laugh. "Don't be silly. This place is just as much yours as it is mine." Slowly he hobbled over to his dresser, starting to pull out a generic undershirt in the top drawer before decideing to make a hasty attempt to change the topic. "So how long are you in town for?"
Terry flew across an ocean to have that conversation, but she didn't seem in any bigger hurry to have it than him. "Do not know. Depends on a number o' things," she answered, dropping the strap and turning to study his hobble. "Are ye injured?" she asked, moving with him to arrive at the dresser alongside him, the piece of furniture in between them.
"I don't think so." He turned back towards her after retrieving the shirt, a small smile on his face. "You know me, I always end up tripping over something, or running into something at the bar." He let out a small chuckle. "Every time I go out, I wind up with a bruise somewhere on my boddy that I have absolutley no idea where they came from." It was true that Terry knew him at one point. Probably better than anybody in the world. But now it seemed like the ocean was probably the smallest of gaps between them. They still seemed to be that far apart, even with her standing right next to him.
Terry crinkled her nose and huffed a snort out. "As long as there are no stairs for you to be tumbling done, I suppose you will live," she joked, smile small. "You could be letting me look at it," she then offered quietly, a touch of innuendo breathed into the words as she reached a hand across the dresser toward him, palm up in another invitation.
"Sure. I don't think it's too bad or anything, but..." Bobby took a shuffled step to the front of the dresser. "Just let me." He bent over and attempted to roll up his jeans above his knee, but the dense material was bunching up too much. "Let me just..." But every attempt seemed to be coming up flat. For a brief second, he placed his hands on the button at the fly of his pants, but stopped himself, looking up at Terry with a small smirk. "You know what, I really don't think it's that bad. I'll throw some Neosporin on it in the morning, and it'll be just fine..." He briefly thought about mentioning that he could always check with Jean to see if there was anything major in the morning. But that would be yet another conversation that the two of them would need to avoid.
Terry sucked in her lower lip and bit it, her expression a disconcerting cross between amusement and anger. "You know. I /am/ your wife," she pointed out levelly, exasperation and irritation undercutting the light tone she had been trying for. "And I /have/ seen your skinny arse before." She pushed away from the dresser and balled her hands on her hips, brows lifted in challenge.
Bobby tilted his head to the side with a smirk. "Alright, but don't say I didn't warn you that my pasty legs aren't enough to blind you." He slowly stripped down to his boxers to reveal a small gash just over his right knee that probably was the result of some trip over a bar stool at Harry's. "Don't think we have to amputate, do ya doc?"
Terry shifted her weight and folded her arms in front of her as a small smirk caught the corner of her lips and twitched. "Well, now, I think I had forgotten how much I like a man in boxers," she mused aloud, eyes fixed on the article of clothing for a moment before she slowly slid her eyes up to his to purr, "All that fuss over a wee scratch like that? Men are such saps."
"Well we can't all be super secret agents now can we?" Bobby let out another chuckle. "But what kind of a guy would I be if I didn't get to piss and moan about things every now and then, right?" He was shocked how much he was able to actually flirt back and forth with his wife after so long. "But it's actually good to have you back so I don't have to piss and moan to myself. My imaginary friend is getting really tired of it." He was shocked as he realized that this was the first time he had really welcomed his wife home since her surprise appearance.
"Is it? Good, I mean?" Trust Terry to throw a bucket of cold water on the fledgling banter. But maybe not on the welcome home, because, acting on impulse, she moved in to hug him, lifting her arms to wrap them around his neck. "I have missed you, boyo."
Drake couldn't help but smile back at her. "I've missed you too." He wrapped his arms around her waste, accepting the hug back from his wife. It was true, he really had missed her. But there still were a lot of things that were being left unsaid between the two. But right now didn't seem to be the time nor the place for that conversation. Instead, Bobby just took an extra moment to squeeze her back, and breathe in the smell of her hair for the first time in over a year.
It smells like something fruity. Strawberries and cucumbers or some such. The contact seemed to break a measure of Terry's tension because she exhaled at that statement and leaned in against him, head tipped back to look up at him. "Good. You should have," she said with a prim tease. "I hope your imaginary friend was right sick o' listening to you piss and moan."
As he pulled himself back a bit, his grin grew larger. "Well even if he is, it looks like that's going to be your job again." He winked for a second. "At least while you're still in town." Whether Bobby Drake got up the nerve to talk through the difficulties of the relationship before that time period was up, remained to be seen.
"To get sick o' you?" Terry asked, wrapping her fingers around the back of his neck to pull him down to her so she could whisper "We'll see," before landing a kiss on him. It was not long, or particularly demanding, and there was an edge of fatigue running under words and body language.
Drake pulled back from the kiss with a small smile on his face. But really he had a lot of mixed emotions about it. "We'll just have to wait and see about that." With those words he slowly turned and began to make his way towards the bathroom of the suite to finish changing. To be honest he was retreating because he didn't want to betray his real feelings. The kiss had felt a bit awkward. Almost as if it were from a mistress instead of a wife. They were feelings he would soon need to figure out. But instead, he just paused in the doorway to look back at his wife. "But I am happy to have you back Terry. Even for a little while."
If it had been from a mistress, it's likely it would have been /less/ awkward. The tension has returned, Terry taking a step back from him at his statement, her hands falling free when he moved away. She stood there, surprise and disappointment clear in her posture. She had told herself to expect a rebuff, but to actually have it happen, no matter how mild, was still a bit of a shock. Hookay. She nodded at him, even dredging up a smile, then turned once he entered the bathroom and moved around the room with a purposeless disinterest. Her circuit did take her by the bathroom door, and she stopped outside to ask, "Are you needing help with that?"
"Nope, all set up..." Bobby let out with a bit of an exhale as he emerged from the bathroom, dressed in his old athletic shorts from his senior year at Xavier's, and a Transformers Band-Aid, the only kind he found in the drawers of the room. "Now all I have to do is turn in, so the kids don't see their math teacher walking around campus with a huge hangover tomorrow." He forced another grin before he made his way towards the bed, but pulled up quickly as he realized that there was only one bed in the room. He tried to find some kind of compromise in his head, but all he could get out was a feint, "Good night..." Before crawling his way under the sheets, and turned back towards Terry. "How much longer do you plan on staying up?" He didn't know what answer he wanted, as he seemed to have fallen back into awkward small talk.
Terry remain where she was, leaning against the wall near the bathroom door, arms folded in front of her while she watched Bobby stumble and fumble around. "Not long," she answered him, watching him closely for a clue to an unasked question. The moment passed, and she pushed away from the wall with determination, stomping into the bathroom to rattle around in there for a moment, then returned with a cup of water. That got slapped down on the nightstand closest to him, before she moved to the edge of the bed and pulling her bag off onto the floor.
Bobby answered her unasked question by pulling the sheet back next to him. Maybe they weren't going to answer their questions tonight, but he wasn't going to slam the door in the face of their relationship either.
The bag hit the floor with a thump, almost landing on her foot and making her jump back out of the way. She eyed the sheet turn with grumpy suspicion a moment, then stripped her sweater up over her head in a fluid motion. It is dropped on the floor, followed shortly thereafter by her jeans. In naught but her underwear, the redhead crawled up into the bed and under the sheet, leaving him to turn out he light, and all without a word. The door may be hanging on broken hinges, but he probably still ended up with cold feet on his legs and a warm body curled close to his side by morning.
Terry returns, and the first face Terry sees is a friendly face. Sort of.
John F Kennedy Airport was a vast, sprawling complex, and like most travellers, few realized that like a small city, it had it's own fire house, police department, and specifically in Theresa Cassidy's case today, a prison. While her Interpol identification had bumpd her up from the normal security drones to the upper management, it still didn't change the fact that somehow her name was on a watch list. The second they ran her passport, an alarm went off and left her cooling her heels in the security office.
After an indeterminate time, the door opened, with Kennedy's security chief in front, and a familiar face behind him; Garrison Kane. The Canadian was dressed in a plain suit and tie, with his FBI credentials pinned to his jacket.
"Pissed off yet, Cassidy?" He said, a wry grin on his face.
She of the name broke off her scowling long enough to look up and roll her eyes ceilingwards with an exaggerated sigh. "Well, if it isn't Kane Himself, come from on high to harass the unfairly detained." The last was said with a withering look at the security chief. Terry set the chair back down on all four legs with a thump and pushed up out of the seat, folded arms falling apart so her hands could find purchase on her hips. She looked back at Kane and lifted her brows expectantly. "Please tell me you are here to be doing more than that though?" she sAid waspishly.
"What, you mean to make nice with a paranoid security chief and convince him you're not an IRA plant posing as an Interpol agent?" Before she could answer, he held up A hand. "It's already done. We think it was someone at State making a point to Interpol. Fred just got off the phone with INS and Customs. You're clear to go. I've got a ride outside."
"And he believed you? Paranoid security chiefs are so gullible these days." Terry flashed a grin, then bent to snag up her bag and hoist it onto her shoulder. "Nice place, but you could be doing something with the decor," she offered to the the poor maligned chief before passing out of her temporary holding cell. With a growl deep in her throat and a stretch, Terry fell into step alongside Kane, giving him a sidelong look as she pulled her hair out of her eyes. "Been a while," she said neutrally after a moment. "Are you part o' the point as well?"
"If I was, we'd be having this talk during your strip search at the hands of Olga... the one with the abnormally big wrists." Kane joked. "Officially, I'm your welcome to the Bureau. Duncan worked out the paperwork today. So you'll have the title of Special Agent for the duration of your secondment from Interpol to the Bureau. You'll be tasked as part of Fred's division with me, but on loan to the RICO task force that Tom Cassidy is Mixed up in the investigation until the conclusion of it."
Terry donned an expression of sly innocence, and murmured, "Garrison Kane. I would noT have been thinking that was your kink." She crinkled her nose and looked away at the 'scenery' they passed, then nodded to acknowledge his information. "Not the first cooperative I've been on, but seems a good arrangement. I'll be wanting access to the information they have gathered soonest..." With that she trailed off, suddenly looking every bit the tired traveler in her rumpled professional wear.
"Access to information will be granted by the task force commander, Terry. It's his call how much he wants to share with Interpol." He reminded her, hiding towards the parking garage. Thanks to the badge, his leperous white Crown Victoria was parked in a no parking area right by the door, allowing her to reach it quickly and without the normal choatic bustle of the airport parking.
Terry sighed. "O' course it is. And it's my call to press for more. Bloody territorial squabbles." She arrived at the car's side and snorts back a sour laugh, looking it over. "Really rolling out the red carpet, to be sure. From security detention to security transport. What is next?" Reaching for the front passenger door, she glanced into the back seat and hauled the door open.
"It's not nice to make fun of my car. You know, I could have made you take a cab." Kane opened the door and slid in behind the wheel. Before he started the engine, he reached into the case he'd been carrying and pulled out a smaller black, zippered case and passed it over. "Badge, security ID, and a holster 10mm with two spare clips. You will need to qualify at the pistol range this afternoon before you can wear it in public."
Terry checked the case, visually inspecting the contents for herself before twisting in her seat and stowing it in the bag she'd shoved into the back. "Sure enough. What else?" She settled back in her seat, turned a bit sideways to face him a little better, then pulled the seatbelt into place. "Do not get me wrong, I am dazzled and delighted by the escort and fanfare..." She patted the dashboard of the car, and flashed him a strained smile. "But is this standard procedure?"
"Oh, you normally would have been met, but considering your background, Duncan wanted me to take care of it. Us Xavier-types have been under a bit of a cloud in the whole SHIELD - FBI dick fight that's been going on for the last few months." He checked his mirror and pulled out into the road. "You'll be clear with the Task Force, but for general duties, just like me, you'll get saddled with Agent Abigail Brand. And never was a larger ladder-climbing SHIELD pain in-the-ass presence than her. Consider me the advance warning."
"Wonderful," Terry muttered, shifting and sinking down in her seat with folded arms. "Just what I was needing. /Another/ arse-kisser t'twitch m' tail," she grumbled, accent becoming more pronounced. "Some days, I am thinking that X in m' background is just a giant cross-hairs."
"Part of the job, Cassidy. Crying about it doesn't help." Kane said as he pulled into traffic. "And be careful with Brand. She's not your typical brownnoser, and she's very smart. A wrong move could find you back in County Cork with a permenant DFA out of law enforcement. I've already risked a one-way ticket back to Toronto against her."
"Once burned, is it, Kane? Don't worry. I am not here t' stir shite with SHIELD. I'm just here t' be a good little drone." The glint in Terry's eye and the set of her jaw belied her words though.
"I'll believe that when I see it, eh?" Kane said as they merged into the traffic on the exit from the airport, in towards the city and the FBI Field Office. "You staying at the mansion while you're here?"
Terry's quiet answered, her hand suddenly plucking at the crease in her pants. "That is the plan," she said, the pause long enough to be called a hesitation. "At least until I can... get settled."
The unspoken question about her and Bobby's status was just answered with a resounding 'who knows', Kane considered, angling away from the topic as soon as possible. " Well, when you're finished with the paperwork and the requalification, give me a call and I'll give you a lift home. You'll probably look like a mobile pile of file folders with the amount of material the RICO investigation is bound to throw at you."
Very deductive, Special Agent Kane. "You don't have to be ferry me about," Terry demurred, pulling her hand up from her pants and flipping it over in a deferring gesture. She paused in consideration of the mental image he provoked, then admitted, "But I will not deny the offer again," looking across at him sidelong as she does. "Anything else of note?" she added after a moment, leaving the distinction between professional and personal up to him.
"You can take a cab if you really want, but it's an expensive ride out to Westchester." He noted, already caught up in the city traffic. "I'me sure you can grab one of the pool cars from the garage for tomorrow if you'd rather drive yourself. Personally, I can't imagine why you'd rather ride in a high end sedan instead of a properly battered and used fine former patrol car like my baby here." He was only mostly kidding. Kane's distain for the more expensive cars favoured by some at the mansion was no secret.
"As for anything else going on... well, that is a much longer discussion. Suffice to say, the FBI orientation will likely be the sane one you'll have today."
"Oh, now isn't /that/ filling me with happy thoughts," Terry said dryly, lifting her hands to twist her hair up into a makeshift twist secured by pressing the back of her head against the headrest. "I would be grateful if it tis you driving the padded wagon this evening." She patted the door handle softly and closed her eyes, stealing one last peek from under her lashes cover.
"I had my white jacket pressed especially for such an occasion."
You know, there may be a reason Bobby and Terry are having relationship trouble. Welcome home?
It was late enough by the time Theresa had escaped the paperwork and testing at the FBI and been able to take Kane up on his offer of a ride home that she half-expected to find Bobby in his suite. "Home," she snorted to herself as the label for the mansion crossed her mind while digging through her bag. "Suppose it is the closest thing." She wasn't /precisely/ unpacking, but closing in on 20 hours of travel and bureaucracy had left her with a headache strong enough to make even one with a healer mutation cry and a desperate desire to crawl into comfortable clothes. The bed was strewn with her travel suit and a bag of jewelry, make-up, and medicine while she sat in the middle in jeans and sweater, a file folder open on her lap.
Bobby Drake was exhausted. After the massacre of a season's end by the Red Sox, he had been spending more and more time at the bars in the local area. This also had meant that he was spending more and more time in the rekindled friendship he had shared with Amanda. Of all his drinking buddies, the witch was the one who he had spent the most time being himself around, and the one who had truly been there during his ups and downs of the past year. It was from one if their excursions that he was now returning to his suite at the mansion. His eyes half closed, he flung himself towards the door, and nearly collapsed as it fell open, and he stumbled in. Still dazed he took a few steps in, letting the door swing closed behind him before he realized he wasn't alone in the room.
Drake's mind instantly shot to panic mode and before he could stop himself, his entire body had shifted to organic ice, and he had taken a few shuffled steps backwards. Only then did he recognize the red hair just in front of his face. Cocking his head to the side his words escaped with a faint trail along with a hint of confusion. "Terry?"
Terry pulled a knee up and braced an elbow on it while she pulled that red hair back from her face. She had gone very still at the sound of the door opening, face draining color and mobility as her lips pressed together in a tight line, throat closing up to catch her breath. How ironic that the siryn couldn't speak at the moment even if she wanted to, Terry thought to herself. She scrutinized him in a hard, fast look as he stumbled in, taking in the details that she could before he noticed her, then watched the shifting with a carefully held stilllness to give him less to react blindly to. Not until Bobby spoke did she drag in a breath and attempt a small, strained smile. "Hello, fear céile," she said, shoving the file off her other knee and rocking forward to crawl to the end of the bed.
Bobby quickly shifted back into his normal form, and took a few steps forward with an awkward smirk. "What in the..." He coughed as he tilted his head to the side. "What are you doing here?" The seemingly harshness of his words hit them immediately with regret as he closed his eyes tight and pursed his lips together. He held his hand up in front of his face defensively. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for it to come out that way." As he opened them, he did his best to lighten his tone, as he jammed his hands into his back pockets and took a few steps forward. "I mean, I just wasn't expecting you in the States." He titled his head forward. "Is there something up?"
Terry narrowed her eyes at the tone, lips crimping together to prevent the response leaping to tongue from escaping. See how she's grown? She crawled off the bed and straightened, taking a step toward him as well but stopping just shy of actually being within arm's reach. She hugged herself and shifted her weight to one foot, hip cocked out. "I should have let you know, I know. I'm--" She stopped and made a face, unwilling to get into the details of how she managed to get herself here just yet. "I'm here on assignment," she said simply instead, her accent county-fresh. "For a while, maybe." She paused and the fingers on her arms pressed divots into her skin. "How've you been?"
Drake stuck out his chin in the awkward "cool guy" move that he saw in the movies. "I've been good." He looked up at Terry, and realized that he felt like a stranger in front of his own wife. Leaning back he tried to recall the events of the past few months. The missed phone calls back and forth. The hurried times they actually got in contact with each other because one or the other had to run off for a mission. And of course the conversation of Bobby's "incident" with Amanda that hadn't really come to a conclusion. Sure Bobby felt horrible about it. He wanted to bring it out in the open. To settle things right now. But instead he fell back onto work. "An Interpol mission? How is work by the way?" Even though Terry might have changed a lot, Bobby Drake seemed to be stuck just the same at times.
They were strangers, for all intents and purposes. Terry stretched her fingers before they clamped down on her arms again. She grimaced at the question, the expression fleeting, but apparent. "Grand," she lied, glancing away. "Coordinating with the feebers on an investigation." She dropped her hands with a bit of force and turned halfway from, standing in profile so she could look back at the bed and her things on it, shoulders slumped. "I have a bit o' reading to do on it."
Bobby was frozen for a bit as he tried to take in the words of his wife. It was easy for him to pick up the lie. Even after all this time apart, she couldn't look him in the face and lie apparently. He started to attempt to comfort her. "Look you can talk to me..." But he suddenly froze again as he reached his hand forward, and it glanced against Terry's skin. It was only briefly, but long enough for him to notice the spark, mixed with the awkward feelings. His eyes fell to the floor to mirror hers, and his hands went right back in his pockets. "If you need to be alone to read, I can... I don't know... head down to my office and do some lesson planning." It was nearly a joke. After months apart from his own wife, he was offering to desert her again.
Terry leaned toward him at the contact, brief though it had been, and as small as the shift in weight was. She looked at him, turning her shoulders slightly, eyes widened in silent questioning until his own fell and he offered to leave. She snorted and stuck her fingers into her hair to pull it back from her face with aggression. "As if you did not come tumbling through that door looking in desperate need of your bed." Terry turned back to the bed and leaned over its foot, gathering up the small mess she had already managed to make on it. "I am done with the reading for tonight anyway. I'm knackered and feeling as sharp as a beach ball. Was just waiting on you. Where've you been?" she rattled on until her things were shoved into the bag. Task finished, she went still and slowly turned around, looking almost shy as she glanced around the room a moment before settling back on him. The bag strap stayed in her hand and the tips of her fingers moved across the ridges in nervous movement. "I should be the one going." It was half-question, half-offer.
"Oh I was just out..." He raised his hand up to rub underneath his nose for a second. "Grabbing a drink with a few friends..." He knew she could easily ask who the friends were, but he thought it might be better to avoid the topic than get into a messy discussion that was sure to come if she found out exactly who the "friends" were. The conversation between Bobby and Terry on his almost kiss with Amanda last year had always been left hanging in the air without a real conclusion. And now, as his wife seemed to be in town for a few weeks at least, might be the perfect time to have that conversation. But instead he let out a laugh. "Don't be silly. This place is just as much yours as it is mine." Slowly he hobbled over to his dresser, starting to pull out a generic undershirt in the top drawer before decideing to make a hasty attempt to change the topic. "So how long are you in town for?"
Terry flew across an ocean to have that conversation, but she didn't seem in any bigger hurry to have it than him. "Do not know. Depends on a number o' things," she answered, dropping the strap and turning to study his hobble. "Are ye injured?" she asked, moving with him to arrive at the dresser alongside him, the piece of furniture in between them.
"I don't think so." He turned back towards her after retrieving the shirt, a small smile on his face. "You know me, I always end up tripping over something, or running into something at the bar." He let out a small chuckle. "Every time I go out, I wind up with a bruise somewhere on my boddy that I have absolutley no idea where they came from." It was true that Terry knew him at one point. Probably better than anybody in the world. But now it seemed like the ocean was probably the smallest of gaps between them. They still seemed to be that far apart, even with her standing right next to him.
Terry crinkled her nose and huffed a snort out. "As long as there are no stairs for you to be tumbling done, I suppose you will live," she joked, smile small. "You could be letting me look at it," she then offered quietly, a touch of innuendo breathed into the words as she reached a hand across the dresser toward him, palm up in another invitation.
"Sure. I don't think it's too bad or anything, but..." Bobby took a shuffled step to the front of the dresser. "Just let me." He bent over and attempted to roll up his jeans above his knee, but the dense material was bunching up too much. "Let me just..." But every attempt seemed to be coming up flat. For a brief second, he placed his hands on the button at the fly of his pants, but stopped himself, looking up at Terry with a small smirk. "You know what, I really don't think it's that bad. I'll throw some Neosporin on it in the morning, and it'll be just fine..." He briefly thought about mentioning that he could always check with Jean to see if there was anything major in the morning. But that would be yet another conversation that the two of them would need to avoid.
Terry sucked in her lower lip and bit it, her expression a disconcerting cross between amusement and anger. "You know. I /am/ your wife," she pointed out levelly, exasperation and irritation undercutting the light tone she had been trying for. "And I /have/ seen your skinny arse before." She pushed away from the dresser and balled her hands on her hips, brows lifted in challenge.
Bobby tilted his head to the side with a smirk. "Alright, but don't say I didn't warn you that my pasty legs aren't enough to blind you." He slowly stripped down to his boxers to reveal a small gash just over his right knee that probably was the result of some trip over a bar stool at Harry's. "Don't think we have to amputate, do ya doc?"
Terry shifted her weight and folded her arms in front of her as a small smirk caught the corner of her lips and twitched. "Well, now, I think I had forgotten how much I like a man in boxers," she mused aloud, eyes fixed on the article of clothing for a moment before she slowly slid her eyes up to his to purr, "All that fuss over a wee scratch like that? Men are such saps."
"Well we can't all be super secret agents now can we?" Bobby let out another chuckle. "But what kind of a guy would I be if I didn't get to piss and moan about things every now and then, right?" He was shocked how much he was able to actually flirt back and forth with his wife after so long. "But it's actually good to have you back so I don't have to piss and moan to myself. My imaginary friend is getting really tired of it." He was shocked as he realized that this was the first time he had really welcomed his wife home since her surprise appearance.
"Is it? Good, I mean?" Trust Terry to throw a bucket of cold water on the fledgling banter. But maybe not on the welcome home, because, acting on impulse, she moved in to hug him, lifting her arms to wrap them around his neck. "I have missed you, boyo."
Drake couldn't help but smile back at her. "I've missed you too." He wrapped his arms around her waste, accepting the hug back from his wife. It was true, he really had missed her. But there still were a lot of things that were being left unsaid between the two. But right now didn't seem to be the time nor the place for that conversation. Instead, Bobby just took an extra moment to squeeze her back, and breathe in the smell of her hair for the first time in over a year.
It smells like something fruity. Strawberries and cucumbers or some such. The contact seemed to break a measure of Terry's tension because she exhaled at that statement and leaned in against him, head tipped back to look up at him. "Good. You should have," she said with a prim tease. "I hope your imaginary friend was right sick o' listening to you piss and moan."
As he pulled himself back a bit, his grin grew larger. "Well even if he is, it looks like that's going to be your job again." He winked for a second. "At least while you're still in town." Whether Bobby Drake got up the nerve to talk through the difficulties of the relationship before that time period was up, remained to be seen.
"To get sick o' you?" Terry asked, wrapping her fingers around the back of his neck to pull him down to her so she could whisper "We'll see," before landing a kiss on him. It was not long, or particularly demanding, and there was an edge of fatigue running under words and body language.
Drake pulled back from the kiss with a small smile on his face. But really he had a lot of mixed emotions about it. "We'll just have to wait and see about that." With those words he slowly turned and began to make his way towards the bathroom of the suite to finish changing. To be honest he was retreating because he didn't want to betray his real feelings. The kiss had felt a bit awkward. Almost as if it were from a mistress instead of a wife. They were feelings he would soon need to figure out. But instead, he just paused in the doorway to look back at his wife. "But I am happy to have you back Terry. Even for a little while."
If it had been from a mistress, it's likely it would have been /less/ awkward. The tension has returned, Terry taking a step back from him at his statement, her hands falling free when he moved away. She stood there, surprise and disappointment clear in her posture. She had told herself to expect a rebuff, but to actually have it happen, no matter how mild, was still a bit of a shock. Hookay. She nodded at him, even dredging up a smile, then turned once he entered the bathroom and moved around the room with a purposeless disinterest. Her circuit did take her by the bathroom door, and she stopped outside to ask, "Are you needing help with that?"
"Nope, all set up..." Bobby let out with a bit of an exhale as he emerged from the bathroom, dressed in his old athletic shorts from his senior year at Xavier's, and a Transformers Band-Aid, the only kind he found in the drawers of the room. "Now all I have to do is turn in, so the kids don't see their math teacher walking around campus with a huge hangover tomorrow." He forced another grin before he made his way towards the bed, but pulled up quickly as he realized that there was only one bed in the room. He tried to find some kind of compromise in his head, but all he could get out was a feint, "Good night..." Before crawling his way under the sheets, and turned back towards Terry. "How much longer do you plan on staying up?" He didn't know what answer he wanted, as he seemed to have fallen back into awkward small talk.
Terry remain where she was, leaning against the wall near the bathroom door, arms folded in front of her while she watched Bobby stumble and fumble around. "Not long," she answered him, watching him closely for a clue to an unasked question. The moment passed, and she pushed away from the wall with determination, stomping into the bathroom to rattle around in there for a moment, then returned with a cup of water. That got slapped down on the nightstand closest to him, before she moved to the edge of the bed and pulling her bag off onto the floor.
Bobby answered her unasked question by pulling the sheet back next to him. Maybe they weren't going to answer their questions tonight, but he wasn't going to slam the door in the face of their relationship either.
The bag hit the floor with a thump, almost landing on her foot and making her jump back out of the way. She eyed the sheet turn with grumpy suspicion a moment, then stripped her sweater up over her head in a fluid motion. It is dropped on the floor, followed shortly thereafter by her jeans. In naught but her underwear, the redhead crawled up into the bed and under the sheet, leaving him to turn out he light, and all without a word. The door may be hanging on broken hinges, but he probably still ended up with cold feet on his legs and a warm body curled close to his side by morning.