xp_logs | Marie-Ange & Wade | Friday Night (backdated)

Marie-Ange and Wade discussing Gabriel, networks, and waffles. As they do.

"I," Wade began, taking his shirt off and tossing it toward the chair in the corner, "Have a cunning plan. And it is excellent." Flopping on the bed, he looked over at Marie-Ange and raised his eyebrows with a suggestive waggle. "Wanna know what it is? Cause I'll share. I'm feeling generous."

"Yes?" Marie-Ange said, slightly distracted by the random acts of no-shirt, and the fact that she was attempting to use a fine-tipped paint pen to draw Betty White's face on a little lego person. The face had to come first, so that if she had to erase and start over she didn't have to re-do the whole thing. She'd already had to draw Estelle Getty's three times already. "Do you want the lego shotgun custom painted? Or is that a silly question?"

"That's a silly question," Wade confirmed, grinning. "My cunning plan has already been set in motion. Cause you want the speedster for X-Force, right? A speedster, the speedster - I'm getting you a speedster."

"Well, a speedster yes, but the particular one in residence now? Yes, yes I want him." Marie-Ange perked up, and set down her paint pen before she did something silly like stick it in her mouth or hair. "In a business way, in a he is already our sort of person way, and in a oh goodness can you imagine all the sneaky things he could do with that power way, yes. I had set Jubilee on him, a little bit, but I am not sure how that is going."

"I dunno about Jubes' plans, but he's running errands for me," Wade said. "And I'm paying him for the errands. And he's picking me up from a meet next week. Weasel's dropping me off, Gabe's picking me up. It's cunning because he doesn't suspect a thing." He grinned, waggling his eyebrows again. "I missed your half-birthday for your speedster gift, but you'll definitely have him before your actual birthday. Probably. He balks every time I pay him. He accused me of having him transport drugs when I paid him for the last one."

"He was very worried the sword for Jubilee was illegal too." Marie-Ange said. "But I think more because he did not want to be arrested or dead." She turned to face Wade, did a quick mental assessment - no new scars, or bruises - and went back to admiring abs. They were excellent. "I am a little worried that he is so angry all the time. Speed people seem to have that problem. Wanda's brother does. Did? And Jean-Paul, he was angry so often. It could cause problems in the long run, but I am not sure. He would fit in so well otherwise."

"Yeah, but he's... got reasons to be angry," Wade pointed out. "He did lose his boyfriend and, y'know, most of the people he knew here who he liked and, I dunno, who kept him stable. I had to go to Africa to get over my, y'know, rage issues. But even an angry speedster is better than no speedster. And he's mellowing out a little, I think. Maybe." Wade held his hand out and wiggled it from side to side. "But you're right, I think he'd fit in. He could learn a thing or two from our sneaky-sneak types so he's not 100% dependent on his mutation. And he'd come in handy if I ever have to wire a building to explode - sixty seconds and it'd be done. I'd just have to push a button. Y'know, after I trained him in how to arm the bombs without blowing himself up. That part's important."

"Or disarm them, yes." Marie-Ange offered. "We do sometimes walk into explosives." Abs thoroughly admired, she picked up her paint pen again and bent over the Lego. "I think also, I would rather train up people to what we need than train out bad habits. Difficult enough to get rid of the ones all of us have, yes?" She set the pen down again, frowning. "Rose Lego, you are just going to have to wait, I cannot draw you today." The lego got placed in a little cardboard case. "What is on your plan next for Mister Cohuelo? Maybe we should include Jubilee, then it is not so obvious what is happening? Maybe yes? No?"

"Maybe, maybe not - if he gets the sense loads of people are in on it, he might actually figure out it's a cunning plan and then it wouldn't be very cunning," Wade said waggling his eyebrows a bit. "He's jumpy. And I get this feeling's he's really, really anti X-groups. Possibly anti-government and institutions in general. Antidisestablishmentarianism. Only not religious."

Marie-Ange's eyebrow slowly raised at Wade drew out the word. "How much did you bet yourself you could use that word today?"

"Six jumbo Reese's Peanut Butter Easter Eggs, seven jelly doughnuts, and a slice of pie," Wade answered, grinning. "Oh, speaking of bets with myself, I have another one. What would you say if I told you I could hook you up with a person who runs weapons in and out of the Soviet Union and China? The only catch is that you'd have to know the password and the secret handshake. But she does other stuff besides weapons, too, and I know she's gotten at least three people out of North Korea."

"I would say that is not a possible thing." Marie-Ange said, punctuating with the paint brush she was cleaning. "Because it has not been the Soviet Union since 1991. They split up. Now they are Russia and the Ukraine and Latvia and I do not think Latveria and Estonia and a lot of other little countries some of whom are very angry at Vladimir Putin."

Wade opened his mouth to reply, then made a face and said, "Fine, so I'm like twenty-five years behind the times. But only sometimes. Point being, would the arms dealer who does more than deal arms be useful even though you have to learn a ridiculous handshake?"

The paintbrush went into it's little case, and Marie-Ange picked up a second to clean it. "Even if all she did was deal arms, contacts are always useful. Smugglers always know people - government officials, business people, police or military police, other smugglers. That this person you know sometimes moves people too, that makes her even more valuable."

"Cool," Wade said, laying back a little. "Sheena's kinda... shady. And twitchy. But she's good at what she does. Even if mostly it's get me AK-47's when I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere Russia. But she's kinda anti-government, herself. All about helping the little people. I think it's funny, I'm apparently a little person who needs helping. Mostly, I think she likes it when I kill people she doesn't like."

"Oh! Oh did she get the sniper rifle when we were in Russia for Doug? And you did tactical karaoke?" Marie-Ange was quite suddenly excited. "I think we were in the Ukraine. I think the Ukraine was maintaining the Exclusion Zone. Because - because whoever Doug got the rifle from also gave him some nice bread. Russian black bread. He said it helped settle his stomach."

Wade grinned again, obviously pleased that Marie-Ange remembered. "Yeah, that was Sheena. She's good like that. Actually, I think her cousin runs a bakery in... somewhere. But that might be a front for selling information, I don't actually know. I just stick with the guns and the grenades. Back in the before times, she's the one I asked about the tank when you left me that post-it."

"I like her already. Reliable illegal weaponry, and delicious bread." Doug had shared, a very little. "And yes, if she has intelligence connections in Russia, we need her." Marie-Ange flopped back and forth between excited about baked goods and all business. "I burned a good half our contacts in Russia for that operation, and we are still struggling there, even with North's personal connections. Even now - which suggests to me that your tactical karaoke incident still happened here, by the way."

"Excellent," Wade said, practically preening. "That's one for the record books. But it means I should probably put you in touch with Sheena sooner rather than later. I dunno what her network looks like, but I'll bet she'd be useful."

"It probably looks like yours, but with more smugglers, and less people who do violence for money. So rather a lot like mine, but with more grenades, less art thieves with good taste in hats." Marie-Ange said. "A network is a network. Even if your people do not know the type of people we need, your people's people might. It is all about following the little lines and pulling the right card from the pack. Your arms dealer knows a customs agent. Her customs agent knows a police officer who can be bribed. That police officer buys meth from a drug dealer, and then we blackmail the dealer into telling us about a mafiya operation. It is just more layers deep, like an onion."

"Nice Shrek reference," Wade said, smiling. "And that's good. My people have been in place for... a really long time. At least two decades, for most of them. Actually, that reminds me. I need to send Giacomo a retirement present. I think his nephew's taking over for him."

Marie-Ange wrinkled her nose into an amused smile. "I do not know what a Shrek is. But in the morning, I would like you to make waffles."

"I'll make waffles like Alton Brown. Only this time I swear I won't knock out all the electricity, the waffle irons will totally be on different circuits," Wade promised with a smile. "And then we're watching Shrek so you can understand the excellence of Donkey's onion analogy."