Garrison and Adrienne - Saturday Togetherness

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

Spending a Saturday running errands together before a date night, Adrienne tries to hide from Garrison the fact that she's trying to spend time with him and work on an X-Factor case. Garrison is far too wise to be tricked, which is fortuitous when he helps solve the case.

Running errands with her boyfriend in the city on an overcast, uneventful Saturday afternoon before supper at a little Italian place and a horror movie at the cineplex was something Adrienne still found strange. It was all so... normal, which was something she'd never expected to have in her life. Part of her was content, which was a wonderful feeling, if she stopped to think about it. Of course, she was much more likely to give into the other part of herself, the part that had to test the limits, had to poke and prod and challenge her own happiness.

So she was using their day together (just the afternoon part, she assured herself) to also work on an X-Factor case. She just didn't want Garrison to find out, because this was supposed to be their time spent together, not time spent working. She wasn't sure what he would say if she mentioned it to him, but she was very conscious of not wanting to disappoint him, and not wanting to fell guilty about the whole thing. So she preferred not to ask at all. Adrienne just wasn't very skilled yet at turning her work ethic off, even for an afternoon. She had too much history of being a workaholic to just give it up cold turkey.

"Okay, hopefully I find the shampoo I need at this one," she chirped hopefully as she pulled her Audi TT up to the curb in front of a little, independently owned drug store in Alphabet City. "Weird about those last two not carrying it. I know I found it at a 'Grey's Drugstore' the last time. Fingers crossed this one has it."

"Yeah. It would be tragic if you had to settle for one of the other two hundred brands of shampoo we've already looked at." Garrison said wryly. He wasn't upset; after all, this was what all the comedians said women did and he'd spent his share of time sitting in a chair in a shop while a swarm of employees swapped dozens of seemingly identical shoes on her feet. Still, they had plenty of time and Adri had seemed a little on edge lately. Not that she'd admit to it, but Kane was a much better judge of body language than she wanted to admit.

Flipping him off, Adrienne got out of the car and locked it behind her, sashaying into the cramped, dingy little drug store. She moved up and down the aisles slowly, touching the labels on the shelves in various places as if using her finger to mark her place as she read the prices, the way small children did when they were learning. Spending some time in front of the dispensary counter, picking up various cough medicines, she eventually moved into the shampoo aisle. "Damn, not here either. I think there's another Grey's over in Hell's Kitchen, though? Do you mind?"

"I thought part of being rich was that you didn't have to do this sort of stuff. You just went 'faugh, faugh, Eugina! Do bring me back my shampoo on your way to the 19th century servant market!'." He said, climbing back into the car. Adrienne preferred tiny, modern luxury cars and hadn't been impressed when he'd opined that her Audi looked like a silver wireless mouse.

"Don't tell me you want me to turn back into that person I used to be," Adrienne retorted, giving him a skeptical look. "Also, I'm going to tell Rogue you called her Eugina. Also also, is it wrong that I sort of want to see a nineteenth century servant's market in the city?" She pulled out into traffic and began to race off across town. "Although I wouldn't put anything past the weird hipsters in Williamsburg. It's possible they already have one.

"Eugina is far from the worst thing I've call Beulah." He settled back, watching the sidewalks during their slow crawl through mid-town traffic. "How's work at the office going?"

"Which one? The very prominent, extremely lucrative fashion and media empire?" Adrienne asked as she cut off a taxi to change lanes during a jump forward in traffic. "Or the super secret, money-hemorrhaging, world-saving-one-mutant-at-a-time detective agency?"

"Wait, are you telling me you've stopped stripping at Scores?"

"I was too good a dancer for them," Adrienne responded sadly. "They were intimidated by me, so they laid me off."

"Makes sense. How about the detective one, since they don't pay you and it involves more danger than your other one for less return."

"It's alright." She shrugged. "I suspended Worthington after he asked a sixteen year-old to come with him on XFI business, with the intent to catch some criminals or something, I don't even know, and they got the shit kicked out of themselves."

"He took one of the kids out? Without backup?" Kane shook his head. "I don't understand why you put up with that guy. I mean, he's not the worst frat boy I've met, but somehow entitled arrogant rich kid who would screw mud if it wriggled does not scream hero to me."

"We're not heroes," Adrienne responded quickly and with vehemence. "I'm not a hero. I do what I do so I can sleep at night. I don't do it to make the world a better place, like you. But... I guess I put up with him- or rather, I used to put up with him, because he used to be someone I respected and trusted. When he was... y'know. The other him. So I guess I keep thinking that guy I used to know is in there somewhere, under all the layers of filth."

"Whoa, relax there, cowgirl. You once helped actually literally save the world. That's hero in my book, regardless of what you want to call it. I'm a hero because of that thing I can do with one arm that makes you sound like a air raid alarm. It's all relative."

Snorting, Adrienne gave him a no-look punch to the arm. It was the closest she usually came to saying thanks, but she figured he knew what she meant by now. "Well, that thing defies all laws of physics. It's pretty heroic. But yeah, I have to decide how long I'm going to be angry with him. And that's just assuming he learns anything from what happened and actually smartens up. If I don't see any improvement in his maturity level, I have to decide if I'm doing a hostile takeover of XFI and relieving him of his shares and employment there. It's hard being the Head Bitch In Charge sometimes."

"Well, like it or not, you guys are a licensed business. Getting caught with teens on the payroll will get you shut down quick. Make him decide whether he's going to treat it like a real job or a hobby and decide accordingly." Kane said, looking at the storefronts they passed idly. "Private investigation agencies work on the sufferance of the police. That's a tough pill to swallow for a lot of people."

"Exactly," Adrienne agreed. "I guess I'm just a little miffed that the guy is thirty and I'm having to make him make a decision like that. I mean, his poor father over at Worthington Industries. But, hopefully this forces him to grow up a little," she added dismissively. She didn't want to spend much more time thinking about Warren. "How are things at the FBI these days?"

"For me? Quiet. Being off the radar with Duncan's task force has involved largely paperwork right now. There's a lot of stuff that should be coming to the Bureau that is instead getting diverted over to SHIELD automatically. Fred's been giving the local field offices hell, but the reality is that there's just not enough training or interest in mutant crime. If it's a mutant and anything approaching a felony, they hit the SHIELD button and call it a day."

"Lame," Adrienne responded, swerving in front of another taxi as she continued to make her way north-westward. "Do you ever wish we were still in our old universe? If we were, my consulting agency could have taken on the job of training the staff on how to deal with mutant crime. Of course, if we were, we probably wouldn't really need to train them," she mumbled in realization.

"Sure I do. But looking at the challenges, I think we need to be here. I'm just grateful I still have you."

"Aw, that's sweet. Too bad I'm driving and you're not getting a blowjob out of it," she teased. "But yeah, back atcha. If you weren't you here... I don't know what I'd be." Silent for a moment, she thought about what he said. "I suppose I've never thought about it in terms of where we need to be before," she admitted. "That's an interesting way to look at it. We need to be here.

"And I suppose I shouldn't complain too much, since I'm far richer here than I was before," she joked.

"Sez the one not missing out on an impromptu blowjob." Kane pointed. "Isn't that your shop?"

"Ooo! Yes!" She'd almost missed it, and cut off a minivan changing lanes before screeching to a halt at the curb in front of the drug store.

Inside, she went through the same routine she had at the other three shops, finally letting out an annoyed sigh as she went over to where Garrison was looking at magazines. "No dice," she muttered, sounding frustrated.

"Uhuh." He flipped over a page to a Brett Gardner profile. "You want to tell me what you're actually trying to pick up with your powers involving the Grey's Drugstore and what I assume is a case?"

Adrienne opened her mouth to lie, but then closed it again. There was no point. But did she want to tell him? "Umm, not really?" she admitted, sounding guilty. "Sorry. I know we're supposed to be spending the day together. I shouldn't be working on a case. I'll stop, I promise."

"Adri, we've already hit half of the Grey's in the city. You don't need to stop now." He put the magazine back in the rack. "But guessing by what you've been reading, I have to think that you think there's an overlap between your case and a delivery rota for certain products for Grey's specifically. Am I getting close?"

"Umm..." Adrienne thought fleetingly of being stubborn, but decided that in this case it was against her nature. Her desire to succeed, to solve this thing, trumped her need to figure out the solution independently. Besides, Kane was an investigator himself. He'd been at it far longer than she had. Why not use that resource when it offered itself to you? So she took his hand and dragged him out of the store, lest anyone involved in the case be listening. "Okay," she said when they were a few feet away from the store, Adrienne lighting up a cigarette to make it look like she'd stepped outside to smoke. "So the owner of these drug stores is a mutant," she prefaced quietly. "In the last three weeks, five of the drugstores have been robbed. It's not a high priority for the cops so Grey hired X-Factor to help. I figured I could just, y'know, fondle a bunch of stuff in here and figure out who's behind it, and then figure out a way to prove it afterwards, like I always do. But, short of following a trail of sidewalk sections and cars- which I'm prepared to do eventually, I just thought this was easier- I can't find out how the thieves are operating. What were you saying about the delivery rota?" she encouraged, since that hadn't been an angle she'd thought about before.

"Delivery people get access to the front and back of the store, and it's not suspicious if small talk turns into questions about shifts and closing times and stuff." Kane looked around. "So, five stores. Grey specific and no evidence of how they got in? Start with access; who has access to all five stores. Then, who can enter without breaking in? Someone with keys like a roving manager, IT guy, pharmacist, etc. What was stolen? Money, product or drugs?"

"Drugs," Adrienne told him, taking a long drag on her cigarette as she thought about what he was saying. "Hence Grey's haste to want to discover who did this. The drugs could be feeding into some bigger trade. As far as access, Grey has a few people he uses for all stores. The point-of-sale systems are all supplied and serviced by the same company; he orders his product from a couple different wholesalers who make deliveries to all stores twice weekly. Then there's the conglomerate stuff the warehouses don't provide that he has to get delivered by the conglomerate's own people- the soft drinks, the candy. And that's not even the hard drugs that are behind the counter. Those are specially delivered, obviously."

"I think you can write off the drug suppliers. There's a ton of oversight on those guys for a reason. Their POS systems would be on a case by case basis. Their-" Kane paused and then grinned. "Of course. He gets soda delivered. Candy. Ice cream. Babe, tell me if Grey employs a full time maintenance guy for his fridge and HVAC repair?"

Handing her cigarette to Garrison, Adrienne strode over to the car and took a file out of the trunk, opening and skimming it on her way back over to him. "According to the financials Sue dug up... umm... yes. Yeah, oh, well, not full time, but it's a dedicated contract. The guy's basically on call in case anything breaks. He's the only one on the books for that type of work. You're thinking it's the repair guy?"

"He's where I'd start. He's got after hour access to all the stores, plenty of time to figure out the gaps in the security camera coverage, and is easily forgettable. If he passes his keys to someone else, he's got an ironclad alibi when the stores are robbed and the only thing he needs to do is collect his keys and payoff after the job." Kane said. "No guarantees, obviously, but he's got means."

Leaving Garrison holding her cigarette, and the file, Adrienne strode back into the store, touching the various coolers in the store and the pharmaceutical counter where she could get a good view of the ski-mask-clad thieves. She bought a pack of Marlboro Lights to make her presence there seem less sketchy and returned outside. "Body type's not matching for him to be one of the thieves," she told Garrison, forgetting that he already had a lit cigarette and lighting up a second one as she concentrated on cleaning up the Readings in her mental repository. "But I'll have Arthur or Lorna or whoever's on shift pull his address and go talk to him," she told Garrison. "Sue can look into his financials. I have a good feeling about this," she nodded. "Well, you know. About the fact we might solve the case. Not so much the fact that I couldn't put the pieces together and you did so in about two minutes, but solving the case is good."

"Remember, I've been doing this longer than you. And I ran into a similar case when I first joined the force, out in Vancouver." Kane explained. "You'd have gotten there. I've seen you work. You're dogged enough running down leads that this guy would have hit your radar at some point."

Taking a drag on the cigarette, Adrienne nodded. "If dogged implies that I would have run around on my hands and knees Reading all the sidewalk tiles and chasing historical images of cars that the thieves used until I followed the actual thieves to their den of inequity, then yes. I would have done that. But I'm glad I probably don't have to. Thanks."

"Don't run yourself down, babe. You've got good instincts. Experience will only make that better."

"You realize you're just regurgitating back at me the lines I used on you about sex when we first hooked up, right?" she teased.

"Yeah, but that's a lot more fun to practice."