xp_logs | Emma and Kevin: late nights and drinking

The noises throughout the house had finally settled as people had gone to bed. Emma wasn’t sure of the time - past 2am, possibly later than 3am - but it was peaceful in the quiet room on the ground floor she had settled into. Some kind of library or sitting room, she thought, with comfortable chairs and books lining the shelves along the walls. The only light in the room was that from her iPad as she answered business emails.

A light came on as Kevin walked through the doorway and paused. "I didn't think anyone else was up. Would you prefer to be left alone?" He'd been at the small bistro down the street, enjoying the local wine and chatting with the other, more obviously old men.

Emma smiled and put her iPad to one side. "I’ve spent most of the year restructuring Frost Enterprises to make sure we survive... the world and all that’s in it. I can probably spend at least a few minutes talking to people I..." Emma paused for a second. "I was going to say 'that I don’t employ' but technically I think I do employ you. That aren’t paid by Frost Enterprises, then."

"Should I start calling you Boss from now on?" Kevin said wryly. He walked over to the sideboard for a glass and drew out the bottle he'd been given by Antoine. He poured a generous measure of dark amber liquor into it and motioned to her. "Are you a cognac drinker? Fortunately for us, Sefton's little getaway is right next to cognac country and one of the locals turns out to have a brother with a distillery."

"A good cognac is a gift from the gods," replied Emma, seriously. "And Boss is fine if you’re that way inclined. My Queen, Your Highness, She Who Must Be Obeyed are other options. I answer to whatever I feel like."

"It's a local cognac, so I can't speak for the quality yet." He poured a second glass and passed it over. "To be honest, Ms Frost would be my first choice. Or Emma, if it's not a problem. One thing that decades in the Agency will teach you is the more impressive the title, usually the less impressive the person. I can't tell you how many Presidents For Life and El Jefes turned out to be rather sad thugs or criminals. The ones that don't care what they're called are the ones you want to take seriously." He saluted her with his glass and took a sip.

"Emma is fine. Ms Frost can get confusing if you talk to my sister often." Emma gave a sudden wry smile. "Wade calls me McSparkles, so I don’t stand on my dignity anywhere near as much as people may think. Don’t," she added, taking a sip of the cognac, "take that as an invitation to call me McSparkles. We’d need a bit more history before that becomes an option." She lifted the glass and admired the colour against the light. "This is rather pleasant."

"It is. I could get used to the the norm here, where the house red is from that guy at the end of the bar." Kevin took a seat across from Emma's couch, setting the bottle on the table between them. "I think I'm too old for McSparkles. Hell, I might even be too old for Emma at times."

"You can always call me Mrs Brinson, if you want to confuse the children," said Emma with a slight smile. "Or indulge in nostalgia." There was a slight lift in Emma's voice at the end of the sentence, making it clear that Kevin could interpret it as a question if he so wished.

"With all due respect, Emma, as formidable as you are, there was only one Nora Brinson." He paused, the drink at his lips. "I know that you were in my head as her... in a sense, but I don't remember you, or the others, in a distinct way in those memories. The memories are... confused. I suppose it is a telepathic thing."

Emma shrugged. "A telepathic thing or the fact that half your brains were setting an interesting problem for an industrial carpet cleaning company." She raised an eyebrow at herself. "Sorry - I’ve been told my sense of humour can be overly brutal. It’s been a long day. A long year. There was an Olympics this year, you know? Feels like they were several hundred years ago."

"I worked with teams that destabilized countries the odd time. Gallows humour is hardly new to me." Kevin said. He neglected to mention the kind of jokes snipers made to try and normalize their job. "Now, I know why I had a long year, but what happened to you?"

"Well, Adrienne and her exciting coma for a start. I’ve spent most of the year restructuring Frost Enterprises to manage the risks that our current government's policies have created, as well as the whole mess in Europe. Which has been... tedious. And time-consuming." Emma took a somewhat larger sip of her cognac. "I feel like the world used to be better. I know it’s a world that hates and fears us etc. etc., but sometimes it’s tiring being everyone's enemy. I like to curate my list of enemies carefully. I like enemies of fine quality and impeccable malice with intricate plans for world domination that I can thwart with my - well, just being better than them at everything, really. This general dull mass of hatred is quite wearing sometimes." She looked at the glass in her hand, speculatively. "I should have pointed out that it’s very late and this is not my first glass of cognac before you asked me serious questions, Mr Sydney."

Kevin grinned as he refilled her glass. "Maybe you've got more of Nora in you than I thought." He paused and leaned back in his chair. "I'm supposed to be trying to connect to people like I'm not an average of fifty years older than all of them. But, after half a century with the Agency, let me tell you, this is nothing new. Different, but not new. The world changes on predicable lines. And... I hate to say this, but I think it slowly gets better. There's a level of correction towards justice. In my prime, you wouldn't have been taken seriously, Marie-Ange would have been a stenographer and Gabe would have been a hate crime." He winced noticeably with the late comment. "But, for all the fifty feet of shit we're dealing with, I still think it's better... or I hope it is."

"Hmmmm," responded Emma, a non-committal noise. "Mrs Brinson seemed rather remarkable," she said, not even attempting to hide her change of subject. "My only knowledge of her comes out of your memories and they were rather - piecemeal, at the time. But she seems to have made quite the impression on you at the time. You respected her." She raised an enquiring eyebrow at Kevin as she leaned forward and reciprocated the favour by filling his glass with cognac with the kind of generous pour that meant she would be unlikely to qualify for Responsible Service of Alcohol certification.

It seemed Emma had learned a heavy pour at some point. Fortunately, that was how Kevin drank. "Very much. I spent five years with Nora in the New York office. I gave all the orders, made all the decisions and yet, a couple of years after moving on, it became pretty clear to me that she was the one really in-charge and I was learning from her. Probably why I never made any of the mistakes most first time office chiefs did. If she'd been born twenty-five years later, I have no doubt she would have been the first woman named Director of the Agency."

“But she wasn’t,’ pointed out Emma. “I find myself irritated on her behalf.” She turned her head slightly, glancing at Kevin. “The only pictures I saw of her were in your head, Mr Sydney, but I felt I recognised her. Haven’t you looked like her in the past? I seem to remember some photos out of our case files that seemed very Mrs Brinson.”

"She's been my default for awhile." Kevin said, taking a long drink. "I started to learn how women understand things from her. It's not her fault for my shortcomings.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” replied Emma with a smile. “I would never blame a woman for a man’s shortcomings. I had wondered why you had chosen to be such an attractive woman, which definitely has its downsides in the business we find ourselves in. As my extensive collection of very large hats can attest. But it’s not that, is it? Not ego.”

"You might laugh, but we were patriots. Nora joined the OSS during the war. I was recruited off the field in Korea. We believed, no matter what, our service to the country was an essential as part of keeping people safe." His look was faraway. "For her, that meant all of the bullshit she had to put up with from guys who saw her as nothing but an office affair, having to use people with far less talent and vision to get her contributions out, knowing she'd never get credit; she did it anyways because she believed. That was what made it worth it to her. Ever since I woke up from being betrayed by the Agency, after years dead or as different people with no memory of myself, I've been looking to believe again. I see her and I remind myself that she'd have already gotten over herself to get back on the job."

“That sounds like the best kind of patriotism,” said Emma. “Patriotic to the best your country could possibly be, not what it currently is.” She took a long sip of her cognac. “Perhaps I also need to believe again, Mr Sydney. If it’s not too late for you, would you consider continuing with this bottle with me and regaling me with tales of Mrs Brinson? Because I think I’d very much like to know more about her.”

"You've just entered my true skillset. Late nights and drinking." Kevin gave her a smile. "And the stories I could tell. Drop Nora into X-Force today, in a day, she knows everybody's name, family history and position. In a week, she knows their intel assignments, individual quirks and processes. In a month, she understands how they all fit together better than anyone, but more importantly, how to do it better."

“Excellent,” replied Emma. “Just give me time to settle in.” She switched her iPad screen off, then rearranged her long legs underneath her, curling up in her chair like a cat. She made sure the cognac glass and bottle was placed within the reach of both of them on the small table between the chairs. Propping her elbow on the chair’s arm, she leaned her chin on the back of her hand. “Please,” she said, once she was sufficiently comfortable, her blue eyes fixed on Kevin’s face with purest attention. “Begin.”