xp_logs | Marie-Ange and Kevin, advice and whiskey

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Marie-Ange goes to Kevin for some advice on how to get X-Force back to their chief mission, but the real question is, does she understand what that mission really is?

Abrupt and unexpected was not, in particular, Marie-Ange's style. Not unless it was urgent, and slinking into Kevin's office with a bottle, two glasses and a face that screamed annoyance was not exactly urgent. More like commonplace, her face had read 'annoyed' for weeks.

"I could use advice, and I have brought an entire bottle of which I intend to only drink very little myself." She started.

"OK. Never bring a bottle you don't intend to drink the most of. It's far more economical as a gift that way." Kevin looked around his newspaper at her and went back to it. "Advice dispensed. I feel very wise now."

"That is terrible advice. It is a poor gift if I drink most of it. Besides, this is you and I have seen you drink." Marie-Ange set the bottle down, and the glasses and nudged them closer to Kevin. "If I wanted an economical gift I would have just found some of Wanda's alcohol and not paid anything for this at all."

"You'd need to have her rack, which you don't." Kevin said, but his joking tone had disappeared as he filled both glasses. "So, what's going on?"

"How do you manage, and I mean you, not in general, this sort of team, this job we do, knowing it just goes on and on. You have done this since before I was born, how do you keep going?" Marie-Ange picked up a glass, and took a drink, almost managing not to wrinkle her nose.

"That's really two really broad questions." Kevin sat back down in his chair, leaning back and looking out at the skyline. "Have you ever heard of a knocking shop?"

Marie-Ange gave a frustrated sigh. "I know you have adapted to this decade, and I know you know I know what a brothel is." She pointed towards Kevin's desk, and the monitor and keyboard he seemed to avoid using as much as possible. "I know you have read on team history, I know you know about Thor, I setup people to do sex work and porn. Please do not be silly about if I know what a brothel is."

"I miss being young enough to still know everything." Kevin said wryly, taking a long sip and refilling his drink. "A knocking shop is what we used to call a group of prostitutes who clubbed together to provide services. They'd usually have a couple of tents or grab on to an abandoned building close enough to whatever base or camp was close by. Guys would come in, pick their girl, and while they were providing service, the other ones would be doing the laundry, making food, basically keeping things running. Other than paying off some bruiser a couple of bucks a day to guard the front, they traded off all the other work in between clients. But unlike a brothel, which has it's talent, other staff and a Madam incharge, in a knocking shop, everybody fucks." He tapped his finger point down on his desk. "This kind of intel setup is what we used to call a knocking shop in the Agency. Because everybody fucks in the sense that everyone is an operative. Everyone is in the field at some point."

"Oh, like a work cooperative farm!" Marie-Ange said, nodding. "My grandpere worked on one of those before he finished university. Everyone shovels the shit, he used to say. Well, if my parents were not around."

"The weird kibbutz isn't the worst analogy. But in every other agency, Operatives are the thin edge of the wedge. They don't last that long. They burn out. They break down. And our shop is all them."

"Yes, that. We are breaking down, and not accomplishing anything by doing it, and I do not know what to do about that." Marie-Ange made the rest of the drink disappear. It was going to be that sort of conversation. "I know how to get people into the field. I do not know how to rotate them in and out, or what sort of planning we need to have people not break down. My mentors were...." She shrugged. "You know the sort of people who never stop, ever? They were them, until the very last moment."

"They were believers." Kevin sighed, looking into his glass for a moment, more vulnerable than she'd ever seen him. "Operatives have to be. Otherwise, they're sociopaths. You need to be willing to send someone to their death, lie to their face, kill them yourself, because you believe that the end result is what matters most. I was a patriot. I believe, no matter how extreme my methods, I was protecting America, and that made me a good guy."

Marie-Ange sat silently for long enough that Kevin refilled her drink, and then drank half, almost automatically. "I believe we are all protecting our people. It is not America, of course, but us, mutants, but if we all burn out, we will have nothing left to do the ugly work. I believe in the goal, and in doing this job, I just think we need a change in how we operate."

"Maybe. But that's what you need to push. This shop needs to buy into that mission without hesitation. And I do." Kevin said, refilling both their drinks. "I'm all in, kid. Because without this, I don't know who I am. But more importantly, this matters."

"If we are going to get patriotic about this, I want to move to a bar where I can drink more. " Sarcasm came easy, and Marie-Ange almost regretted it. "I believe in this, I would like to keep believing in it for as long as it takes to train another dozen people to pick up where we left off. That means we cannot burn out everyone, so how do we keep that from happening?"

"That depends. Do you want to setup long term or do you want to get along?" Kevin held up a finger. "It's about the structure and approach."

"I want us to work, and I want us to accomplish things, and right now we are treading water." Marie-Ange said, ticking off on her own fingers. "I inherited X-Force, and I do not have any idea what the broader plan was, or if there was one, and I want one. We are a shotgun, I think we need to be a sniper rifle. Find one thing to accomplish, do it, and stop scattering our efforts all over."

"The challenge that you're facing is that shops like this aren't supposed to last long, Being an operative is hard. It has a bad tendency to chew people up, burn them out, or get them killed. So if you want to make this place work on a general mandate, you need to find someone with at least twenty years more experience than you that you trust, give them the keys, and let them hire a dozen people you're willing to answer to and another thirty or forty who will answer to you. I was the youngest CIA officer to manage a field office ever, and I was maybe a couple of years younger than you and entrusted with maybe a tenth of the responsibility and authority. If you want an agency, this place needs to be a lot bigger and needs resources that you can all learn from." Kevin said, gesturing to the office as a whole.

"Option two is that you ditch the broader plan. Tell me something, Colbert. In one sentence, what are you willing to die for? Or to kill for, for that matter?"

"You do not pull punches on these questions, do you." Marie-Ange said. It was not really a question. "Us. As a people. Mutants. We are powerful and vulnerable at the same time, and people hate that."

"That's not a plan. Will you die for a mutant murderer? Child molester?" Kevin said, his eyes oddly bright against the sun downing in the skyline behind his desk. "No. Let's get ahead of the childhood nonsense and the feel good bullshit. Tell me what makes you get up in the morning and be willing to end the day in the grave if needed."

"You said one sentence. If you do not want naive answers do not ask me to summarize, you know it is not simple." Marie-Ange protested. "No, I am not going to my grave, how dramatic, for a child molester. Do not lets be ridiculous. I am not going to my grave for Magneto, even. But if I die and it means that two more generations are born and live and thrive? Or even one more." She frowned, frustrated. "I do not have a one sentence answer for you, this is not easy, if it was easy I would be at the mansion in tight leather pants."

"That's where you're wrong. It needs to be easy. Simple." His odd lop-sided grin appeared as he took another pull from his drink. "But it also needs to be clear, even if under the hood it is full of contradictions. Perpetuating the mutant race isn't your goal. If it was, you wouldn't be doing it with both hands tied behind your back. And it's not so mutants and humanity live together in utopian bliss, because if it was, that would earn you the leathers. I spent fifty years defending the land of the free and the home of the brave, even while knowing just how much of that was a steaming pile of bullshit - but it didn't make it untrue. One sentence, Colbert. Let's see if you've got it in you."

"Well I do not have it in me then, because I do not know what to tell you. I want to know that monsters who use children and turn them into soldiers die instead of run countries, and I want people to stop writing terrible laws that lock mutants in jail cells for existing and I want no more teenagers to die on fire because Magneto thinks there will be another Holocaust and for all I know he could be right, all of that is clever X-Men talk, except none of them seem to understand how much murder you have to do to get those things done." Marie-Ange's fingertips were white with holding her hands steady, and she let out a ragged sigh. "I just want this team to work well enough to get things done again and I do not even know what I want anymore besides that."

"If you don't, give it over to someone else." Kevin said, a touch of cruelty in his voice. "If you want to lead this, you need to be better. You need to understand what you're doing."

He stopped and refilled their glasses. "You need to believe in something, Marie-Ange. It doesn't work otherwise. I think you can give me one statement, but I think it terrifies you. If you can't, give me the keys to this shop. I'm not the right person, but I can keep them alive until we find the right person."

Kevin stopped, looking at her. "But someone you refuse to tell me about said you can do this. Tell me why?"

"Oh, but if I could go back and ask him, because I do not know." Marie-Ange answered. "I can do the job. I can setup missions and find contacts and I know what we do is horrible, but.." She took a sip from her drink, looking like she might gulp it and then set it down firmly. "We are like chemotherapy. It is horrible and ravages someone's body but it gets rid of cancer." A pause. "It is an imperfect metaphor. I do not know why I have the job, I was not expecting it. I thought it would be David or Wanda, not me."

"Do you think I care about your excuses? MA, I'm an actual monster. I flushed countries if I needed to secure American interests." He said. "Do you want to give it up to David or Wanda? Tell me if I'm wasting my time with you?"

"You think I wouldn't topple a country to keep mutants from being slaves?" Marie-Ange put her hands flat on the table. "I helped destroy Genosha." She shook her head. "And now you have me on the defensive. I know better. Look, the best I have ever thought, I inherited this because I would burn America down if it meant stopping the government from... " She stood up. "Governments and scientists and cults use us to try to do whatever it is they want, the worst of whatever it is they want, and no one gets to do that. Everyone who taught me this job was... turned into a monster, sometimes by force. At least I chose it. You chose it. Nobody gets to force people to be monsters."

"And there you have it. Nobody gets to force people to be monsters." Kevin toasted her with his glass. "Congratulations, Colbert. You just created a mission statement."

"It is what we started at, and we've strayed from that." Marie-Ange said, sitting back down. "Which is my fault, strongly. We are all over the globe, looking at every such thing. I know how to setup a mission. I know how to send out a strike team. I have, pardon me for it, fuck all knowledge of how to get us from this scattered mess into something much more precise."

"You go back to your mission statement. Shops like this are dangerous and combustible because everyone is in the field. Pull everyone in to start and re-articulate what you see the team's role. Ask them how their networks fit. What they could be doing instead of what they are doing."

"What I am hearing you say is boss everyone around, pull them in from the cold, and stop letting Jubilee expense her vodka habit." Marie-Ange's voice was light, but her expression was much more serious as she continued. "I think I see what you are saying. Regroup, and make sure we are in the same book, if we cannot be on the same page."

"No. Don't boss anyone around. Get back out in the field." Kevin said. "Regroup, but also align what needs to happen. Like I said, this is a knocking shop. Make sure everybody fucks."

For a moment, Marie-Ange considered exasperatedly asking Kevin - the room - God - why everyone took some of what she said so seriously, but thought better of it. It had probably not been the best time for sarcastic comments about bossing everyone around anyway. "Where do you stand in all of this? I mean to say, you have trained teams, you have run teams, and you have an objective perspective. Help me plan the field rotations, who to send where, once I have pulled everyone in for a bit?"

"I can do that. But there's a larger perspective. Can you make everyone believe in your mission statement? Because if not... if not, it's shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic." He said, and paused as he refilled his drink. "More than anything, it's about if they believe in you. That's is the bar to cross."

"That I can do. If not right away, I can build upon what already exists. It is really the deck chairs that I need to learn how to do." Marie-Ange explained. "I have... all the beginning and most of the end, but none of the middle. You know I can do field work, you know I can run a mission, but my mentor died before I learned to run a whole team. I am making it up, and I need help."

"With this kind of shop, your job isn't going to be running the whole team when it gets right down to it. Your operatives will be the ones turning up the intel and finding the ops you need to look at. Your more experienced operatives should be the ones designing them. What you need to do is keep people on track. Focus on the missions that align with the mission statement you outlined, and get their buy-in when they have to abandon something that's important but not to our goals." He shrugged. "Your mysterious mentor obviously took a bunch of neophytes and trained them up to do the job. How they managed the team, I'd guess, is based around being the one with all the experience and the knowledge. That's not the team or the role you inherited. It's being at the centre of everything and making sure the resources come together in the most effective configuration, that operatives are oriented towards the team's goals, and that when it comes down to a final decision needing to be made, you can not only do it, but bring everyone around to what you chose, even if that means some hard confrontations."

The bottle was empty so he replaced it with one from his sideboard and poured another drink. "If you can get them to that point, Colbert, they'll be able to tell you where they should be deployed and likely be right. Their experience becomes yours to draw on, rather than something you need to match your own against."

"I trust my team. I know what most of them want out of this job. It aligns." Marie-Ange said. "But see, yes, you know these things, and I am still fumbling around in the dark." She paused, and laughed. "If it means I have to keep bringing you alcohol, I will. Perhaps I can just pour the knowledge out of you."

"I think you're worrying too much about the operational aspects. The younger ones need a little more handholding, certainly, but Maximoff or North? Tell them you want coverage on mutant weaponization in Eastern Europe and give them the resources, they'll get to work building the networks. Hell, at this point, Gabe's ready to run a real network without much help." He said, shrugging. "So let them do it. Once they have, identify the gaps between the coverage you need and the coverage you have and send them out again to fill them. There's no official playbook at this level, Colbert. I don't have a ten week course that's going to make up decades of experience. Do the job the best you can, listen as much as possible, ask for help from the people with more experience and when you screw up - and you will - learn from your mistakes. The best leaders I had weren't the best operatives or guys in the field. They were always the people who understood the big picture, always had it in mind, and how everyone, including themselves fit in. If I knew how to teach you that, hell, I'd be running the CIA as my personal fiefdom right now."

"The day I try to handhold David North, I give you permission to ask Felicia to stab me." Marie-Ange shot back. "I mean, more. I am a third your age. I am going to ask for help from the people with more experience, which means I am going to be asking you most. I am just warning you, expect a lot of questions and more free alcohol."

"Good. It means you're not an idiot." Kevin said. "The questions thing, I mean. The alcohol, that's just reading the room properly."

"Again, the day I cannot read a room, please ask Felicia to stab me."

"I usually ask her that when she brings in coffee in the morning." Kevin said. "Seriously though, if you ever feel you're not ready and need to walk away, do so. That doesn't mean it's forever and you can't reclaim it, but the worst thing you can do is be unsure. As long as you feel you're up to it, accept the mistakes, learn from them, and keep forging ahead. There's no substitute for that."

He dropped the now empty second bottle in the trash and finished off his glass. "And now, I'm off to do important spy drinking on the town. Feel free to join me. Losing your clothes later is entirely optional."

"You know, I think I will join you." Marie-Ange said. "For the drinking. The rest I will leave to you and someone you do not have to remember the name of tomorrow."