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Jul. 25th, 2020 10:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsAngelo and Marie-Ange meet for lunch and he manages to surprise her.
Marie-Ange set her purse down on the booth before sitting down, and leaned back into the worn leather with a silent expression of relief. "My apologies for being late, today has been a, what is the phrase, heated garbage mess?"
"Trash fire?" he suggested. "What are you having? Then you can tell me all about it, or as much as you can."
"Pancakes and eggs and bacon and hashed potatoes." The waitress had appeared with the precise timing of all great food servers, just in time to take orders. Marie-Ange placed hers, and then turned back to Angelo. "It is the usual complaints, too many fires to put out, not enough time. Jubilee came back from eastern Europe with a dozen leads into people doing mad science, and my to do list is a mile long."
But she smiled, and went through the happy process of putting a tea bag into hot water and letting it steep. "So a bit the same as your usual weeks, I imagine."
"You eat like an energy projector", he teased, grinning. "Yeah, I only get the occasional mad scientist, but the word's got out I'm the mutant lawyer, so any case with a mutant that comes to our office seems to land on my desk."
"You are grey and pick up your mail while sitting at your desk, I think it took a little less than word getting out. And I am an energy projector, technically." Marie-Ange justified. "I have a reputation to maintain in the office that I only eat salad and tea, so when I am out with someone who knows how I really eat I make up for it."
"I can not be grey if I really try. I just don't, much, 'cause it gives me headaches. I used to do it in court but there's not much point now." He laughed. "How long have you been keeping that up? Half the people in the office have known you as long as I have."
"Shh. Do not spoil my illusions." Marie-Ange said, also laughing. "If anyone in my office does not know my real eating habits, they are poor spies and should be fired."
"There is that", he agreed cheerfully. "Clea's probably practising on you as we speak."
"Clea knows." Marie-Ange said, with an amused pout. "We all had to fight cultists at Denver Airport, and she saw me eat a giant pasta bowl. It is not an all the time thing, but I do have to recharge. A little less now, I find I cannot do the giant images anymore. No more fifty foot statues."
“At all?” Their food arrived and he smiled at the waitress before digging in. “Is that just natural progression, or...?”
"It is a side effect of not having any more depth perception. I have to work harder to make the images effective, so I cannot make them as big anymore." Marie-Ange started into her eggs, carefully and neatly dipping bits of pancake into the egg yolk. "But, no migraines, and almost no nightmares. Not a single headache since I lost my eye, and the only nightmares are ones I self induced by pushing the precognition past sensible limits."
He nodded. “I guess the brain does unexpected things when something big happens. Strange about the nightmares, though, I don’t see the connection.”
Marie-Ange's eyebrows went up. "I am not sure it is my brain exactly. I spent seven days in an induced coma after I lost the eye, and now I have an eyepatch and I have always had ravens and crows harassing me. I am not surprised that I have a better grasp on my precognition now." She cracked an uneasy grin. "Remember the Danger Room incident? I called up a spear to kill Voldemort with no cards. Odin is such an arsehole."
“I really hope that wasn’t him on the subway”, Angelo said more lightly. “Enough of Asgard messing with this world already.”
"I am so very very over Asgard. We had crows in the elevator for weeks before all of that Odin's evil brother nonsense earlier this year."
"...what, real flesh and blood crows? How did they get in the elevator?"
"I have no idea. I blame Asgard." Marie-Ange stabbed at her pancake. "And now I will gracefully change the subject, because I worry if we talk about it too much we will have more Asgard problems." She fumbled with her fork for a moment. "Oh, is it time for my annual attempt to get you to work for me?"
He pretended to think about it, grinning. "I think it might be. So, what new thing have you got to try this year?"
"Our legal cases are more interesting and you could expense all your burritos?" Marie-Ange said, stress falling off her face easily in the wake of getting to change the subject off Odin and onto something familiar, if futile. "I think I have offered the burrito expense account before though."
“I think you did, but I’m going to take it that includes tacos too. What kind of legal cases?”
"International law...." Marie-Ange drew the phrase out as though it was some kind of verbal bait on a hook. "Figuring out who is breaking what laws and how we can use that to our advantage. There are days I wonder if I should have done a degree in law myself, for all of the times I end up trying to understand it." She shrugged. "Plus it would make the betting pool for how many laws we've broken so much easier. You would win all the time!"
“That would almost be cheating”, he said, laughing. “But you know, the big fish can afford lawyers of their own to wriggle out of anything.”
"I know it. Mostly everything we do is... I suppose, it is handing things to other lawyers, when we need to involve the law. A lot of, ah. You know the sort of thing, telling people what law they have broken and how many years they could get in jail so that they give us whatever information they need." Marie-Ange shrugged. "But mostly that because none of us are lawyers. The best i can do is a good Elle Woods impression."
"So do you turn these people over to the local cops after, or just use it as a carrot and stick thing? 'Cause I've been mostly doing defense since I qualified."
Marie-Ange gave Angelo a blank look that said, in short. "please don't make me tell you what I do to those people" and then blandly took a bite of pancake, as though she hadn't needed to give him that look.
She got raised eyebrows in return before he took a forkful of eggs. "So basically you need someone that isn't bluffing?"
"No I need someone who understands the actual legal bits, but does not scoff at the bits where we use those to do blackmail." Marie-Ange said, and then stuck out her tongue. "And now I have had to say it, ick. Rude."
"Hey, I didn't make you say it", Angelo said with a grin. "All sorts of ways to get the idea across without using the ugly word."
"Good, you can work for me and teach everyone how to do that!" Marie-Ange said, faux-brightly.
"If I do", he asked speculatively, "do I get to make them give chunks of their money to causes they might not approve of?"
"Wait, what?" Marie-Ange was not even sure she'd exclaimed in English. It might have been French, or even Asgardian, Angelo was one of the few people she could keep her hand in the oldest of languages with. He'd never even speculated an acceptance before, and she'd been asking for years.
He grinned at her. "Well, you know. You've been trying so long, only seems fair to seriously think about it."
For a moment Marie-Ange looked stunned, and then shook it off with a gulp of coffee. "You cannot do that to my nerves. I do not have my "the job is awful and we do bad things" speech prepared for you." Which was really something she should get to doing. She had one for her -cousin- but not his husband? "It really is a terrible job."
More seriously, "Yeah. I know. But we've known each other since we were sixteen and I also know you wouldn't even have asked once if you thought I wouldn't be able to handle it."
"Yes, but then I relied on tarot cards that told me you would never say yes." Marie-Ange reached into her bag, took out a deck and shook a scolding finger at it. "And then of course, all of what happened happened so I suppose all the future got unwritten and I need to remember that for people I have known forever."
“I hadn’t even thought of that. I guess it makes sense, though... this isn’t the same world where you took that reading.”
"Oh goodness you should see what I had to do to all my tarot decks. Entire boxes of them were changed." Marie-Ange stabbed an egg with her fork, a little more forcefully than necessary. "Doug had to make a spreadsheet. He spent hours with little colored sticky tabs." She paused. "In hindsight I think he liked it though.”
Angelo chuckled. “That does sound like something he’d like. Trying to make sense of it all.”
"He is such a nerd, but he is honest about it."
“Well, with his power, he couldn’t exactly not be a hacker, and maybe the rest follows.”
"Or it is just who he is, but that." Marie-Ange picked up her coffee mug to gesture with. "That is just going around the circle of Descarte and I do enough philosophy with my own power. Some days I am jealous of you with your nice simple powers."
"I like my powers", he agreed cheerfully. "And I'm still finding new applications for them."
Marie-Ange's smile went dark for a moment, and she took a drink of coffee. "If you are going to at all consider my offer, I assure you there will be a dozen more of those." She said, finally. "But I think we should table that for now. I really do not have the speech prepared, and I would do horribly by old gone friends if I did not give it to you properly."
Marie-Ange set her purse down on the booth before sitting down, and leaned back into the worn leather with a silent expression of relief. "My apologies for being late, today has been a, what is the phrase, heated garbage mess?"
"Trash fire?" he suggested. "What are you having? Then you can tell me all about it, or as much as you can."
"Pancakes and eggs and bacon and hashed potatoes." The waitress had appeared with the precise timing of all great food servers, just in time to take orders. Marie-Ange placed hers, and then turned back to Angelo. "It is the usual complaints, too many fires to put out, not enough time. Jubilee came back from eastern Europe with a dozen leads into people doing mad science, and my to do list is a mile long."
But she smiled, and went through the happy process of putting a tea bag into hot water and letting it steep. "So a bit the same as your usual weeks, I imagine."
"You eat like an energy projector", he teased, grinning. "Yeah, I only get the occasional mad scientist, but the word's got out I'm the mutant lawyer, so any case with a mutant that comes to our office seems to land on my desk."
"You are grey and pick up your mail while sitting at your desk, I think it took a little less than word getting out. And I am an energy projector, technically." Marie-Ange justified. "I have a reputation to maintain in the office that I only eat salad and tea, so when I am out with someone who knows how I really eat I make up for it."
"I can not be grey if I really try. I just don't, much, 'cause it gives me headaches. I used to do it in court but there's not much point now." He laughed. "How long have you been keeping that up? Half the people in the office have known you as long as I have."
"Shh. Do not spoil my illusions." Marie-Ange said, also laughing. "If anyone in my office does not know my real eating habits, they are poor spies and should be fired."
"There is that", he agreed cheerfully. "Clea's probably practising on you as we speak."
"Clea knows." Marie-Ange said, with an amused pout. "We all had to fight cultists at Denver Airport, and she saw me eat a giant pasta bowl. It is not an all the time thing, but I do have to recharge. A little less now, I find I cannot do the giant images anymore. No more fifty foot statues."
“At all?” Their food arrived and he smiled at the waitress before digging in. “Is that just natural progression, or...?”
"It is a side effect of not having any more depth perception. I have to work harder to make the images effective, so I cannot make them as big anymore." Marie-Ange started into her eggs, carefully and neatly dipping bits of pancake into the egg yolk. "But, no migraines, and almost no nightmares. Not a single headache since I lost my eye, and the only nightmares are ones I self induced by pushing the precognition past sensible limits."
He nodded. “I guess the brain does unexpected things when something big happens. Strange about the nightmares, though, I don’t see the connection.”
Marie-Ange's eyebrows went up. "I am not sure it is my brain exactly. I spent seven days in an induced coma after I lost the eye, and now I have an eyepatch and I have always had ravens and crows harassing me. I am not surprised that I have a better grasp on my precognition now." She cracked an uneasy grin. "Remember the Danger Room incident? I called up a spear to kill Voldemort with no cards. Odin is such an arsehole."
“I really hope that wasn’t him on the subway”, Angelo said more lightly. “Enough of Asgard messing with this world already.”
"I am so very very over Asgard. We had crows in the elevator for weeks before all of that Odin's evil brother nonsense earlier this year."
"...what, real flesh and blood crows? How did they get in the elevator?"
"I have no idea. I blame Asgard." Marie-Ange stabbed at her pancake. "And now I will gracefully change the subject, because I worry if we talk about it too much we will have more Asgard problems." She fumbled with her fork for a moment. "Oh, is it time for my annual attempt to get you to work for me?"
He pretended to think about it, grinning. "I think it might be. So, what new thing have you got to try this year?"
"Our legal cases are more interesting and you could expense all your burritos?" Marie-Ange said, stress falling off her face easily in the wake of getting to change the subject off Odin and onto something familiar, if futile. "I think I have offered the burrito expense account before though."
“I think you did, but I’m going to take it that includes tacos too. What kind of legal cases?”
"International law...." Marie-Ange drew the phrase out as though it was some kind of verbal bait on a hook. "Figuring out who is breaking what laws and how we can use that to our advantage. There are days I wonder if I should have done a degree in law myself, for all of the times I end up trying to understand it." She shrugged. "Plus it would make the betting pool for how many laws we've broken so much easier. You would win all the time!"
“That would almost be cheating”, he said, laughing. “But you know, the big fish can afford lawyers of their own to wriggle out of anything.”
"I know it. Mostly everything we do is... I suppose, it is handing things to other lawyers, when we need to involve the law. A lot of, ah. You know the sort of thing, telling people what law they have broken and how many years they could get in jail so that they give us whatever information they need." Marie-Ange shrugged. "But mostly that because none of us are lawyers. The best i can do is a good Elle Woods impression."
"So do you turn these people over to the local cops after, or just use it as a carrot and stick thing? 'Cause I've been mostly doing defense since I qualified."
Marie-Ange gave Angelo a blank look that said, in short. "please don't make me tell you what I do to those people" and then blandly took a bite of pancake, as though she hadn't needed to give him that look.
She got raised eyebrows in return before he took a forkful of eggs. "So basically you need someone that isn't bluffing?"
"No I need someone who understands the actual legal bits, but does not scoff at the bits where we use those to do blackmail." Marie-Ange said, and then stuck out her tongue. "And now I have had to say it, ick. Rude."
"Hey, I didn't make you say it", Angelo said with a grin. "All sorts of ways to get the idea across without using the ugly word."
"Good, you can work for me and teach everyone how to do that!" Marie-Ange said, faux-brightly.
"If I do", he asked speculatively, "do I get to make them give chunks of their money to causes they might not approve of?"
"Wait, what?" Marie-Ange was not even sure she'd exclaimed in English. It might have been French, or even Asgardian, Angelo was one of the few people she could keep her hand in the oldest of languages with. He'd never even speculated an acceptance before, and she'd been asking for years.
He grinned at her. "Well, you know. You've been trying so long, only seems fair to seriously think about it."
For a moment Marie-Ange looked stunned, and then shook it off with a gulp of coffee. "You cannot do that to my nerves. I do not have my "the job is awful and we do bad things" speech prepared for you." Which was really something she should get to doing. She had one for her -cousin- but not his husband? "It really is a terrible job."
More seriously, "Yeah. I know. But we've known each other since we were sixteen and I also know you wouldn't even have asked once if you thought I wouldn't be able to handle it."
"Yes, but then I relied on tarot cards that told me you would never say yes." Marie-Ange reached into her bag, took out a deck and shook a scolding finger at it. "And then of course, all of what happened happened so I suppose all the future got unwritten and I need to remember that for people I have known forever."
“I hadn’t even thought of that. I guess it makes sense, though... this isn’t the same world where you took that reading.”
"Oh goodness you should see what I had to do to all my tarot decks. Entire boxes of them were changed." Marie-Ange stabbed an egg with her fork, a little more forcefully than necessary. "Doug had to make a spreadsheet. He spent hours with little colored sticky tabs." She paused. "In hindsight I think he liked it though.”
Angelo chuckled. “That does sound like something he’d like. Trying to make sense of it all.”
"He is such a nerd, but he is honest about it."
“Well, with his power, he couldn’t exactly not be a hacker, and maybe the rest follows.”
"Or it is just who he is, but that." Marie-Ange picked up her coffee mug to gesture with. "That is just going around the circle of Descarte and I do enough philosophy with my own power. Some days I am jealous of you with your nice simple powers."
"I like my powers", he agreed cheerfully. "And I'm still finding new applications for them."
Marie-Ange's smile went dark for a moment, and she took a drink of coffee. "If you are going to at all consider my offer, I assure you there will be a dozen more of those." She said, finally. "But I think we should table that for now. I really do not have the speech prepared, and I would do horribly by old gone friends if I did not give it to you properly."
