Marie-Ange and Piotr Rasputin
Feb. 6th, 2022 02:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsMarie-Ange has drawn the short straw on the Sunday Dead Drop run, in the middle of a small District X protest - and runs into a familiar face made of organic steel.
Going into Mutant Town was not one of Piotr's favorite places to go but when you needed to bow to your capitalist overlords then one did what one had to to make food, rent, and gym fees.
In this case, food, rent, and gym fees would hopefully be coming from a patron who wanted a formal oil portrait done of his youngest daughter. So into the case went a sketchbook, pencils of various uses, and a small selection of paints and brushes. Which reminded him with a sigh that he needed to get new brushes soon. His were ... not dead yet, but definitely standing in grave having a conversation with official about time of death.
If he caught the right bus combinations, he could be at the client's in an hour. He dragged a brush through his hair and his beard, then glanced down at himself. Today was a Piotr day, as most days were, so he wanted to dress "artistic" but not shabby. He finally settled on a good pair of jeans, his boots, and a tight tank top that showed off his physique to good affect but was still totally decent. Light tracksuit coat over it, and he was off to visit his client.
Unfortunately for Piotr's dreams of making his appointment on time, the closer he got to Mutant Town the more jacked up traffic got. There was some sort of a demonstration going on and Piotr, raised as a good little Communist, avoided politics like the plague. At least openly.
Of -course- she'd drawn the short straw on the dead drop walk, of course the X Lives Matter protests were spilling out off the street they'd started on. Marie-Ange stopped, phone in hand. to discreetly take photos of the edges of the protest. It hopefully looked like any other well dressed women taking a streetcorner selfie.
She could see the protest getting ragged around the edges, a small clump of people breaking away to duck down a street, the flashing red and blue lights of the NYPD creeping closer. A quick text back to the office, and the photos were uploaded and being analyzed.
A quick one-handed shuffle, and she had a pair of cards in her hand - The Tower, which she expected. Protests were easily driven to chaos and they were certainly risky in terms of destruction but this one was not there - yet. The other though - her art deco Deck showed the Chariot as an armored man in a old convertible Studebaker.
Piotr finally got off the last bus he needed to take, but it dropped him right into the fringes of the protest. Still early for them, mostly a lot of visible mutants and their allies chanting things and swirling about in small groups, talking themselves up for something bigger. Piotr tried to skirt the edges as best he could, but it wasn't easy with being six and a half feet tall and carrying an awkward bag. Which, he also just realized, still had an old painting he'd done of the Snowflake when she was a girl. Before she disappeared without a trace, never to be seen again.
Steeling himself, he was contemplating a cup of strong tea, if he could get something like that here, but then shook his head as he decided against it. Nah. Best to make it to the client, show off what he could do, and hopefully land the commission. He could certainly use the money. Being forced to divert, he moved as best he could through a hopefully-less-dense section of the gathering of protesters, just wanting to get through before something exploded. He almost bowled over a slender redheaded woman carrying ... a deck of cards? That was off. "So sorry." he said, his Russian accent shining through. "Things are a little tense out here today."
"It is not going to get better, I think. This sort of protest boils over quickly." Marie-Ange had taken a step back to avoid the tall man, and still had to take another quick step to keep from being knocked over. He was taller, and closer than she'd guessed.
"I just hope nobody gets hurt." he offered to the young lady, making sure to give her more than enough space. He wasn't here to be threatening or to intimidate and he'd hate to cause her any additional distress. "Please excuse me." he said, and then turned to make his way further into the district. Soonest in, sooner he could leave, he supposed.
The man looked just familiar enough - something in the back of her head, that Marie-Ange paused for a moment. He had an art bag - but he certainly wasn't one of N's people, they all knew who the eyepatch wearing redhead was, or at least enough of them did that she had a little stack of business cards with etsy stores, squarespace webpages and deviantart links. Her dead drop location on this block was empty, it almost always was, and the digital one wasn't giving off a signal, so she had no reason to linger.
But she did anyway, a moment of concern for the protest in the back of her head, and the weight of those two cards eating at her.
On the fringes of the crowd, she could see movement, and shouts echoed up the block. Mostly chanted protest slogans, and a few "Magento is right!" mixed in.
The protest was getting worse. It pulsed and seethed, like an animal testing the limits of its leash. And sooner or later, that leash would break. Piotr, oblivious, was smiling to himself as he departed the domicile of his potential new patron. The meeting had gone really well, he'd met the child he was going to paint along with her father, the father seemed impressed with his artistic ability, and the child herself was a delight. But as if to remind him of his plight, his stomach growled and he resolved to grab something cheap and tasty from a street vendor on his way home. He'd earned it.
Unfortunately for him, life had other plans for him today.
On the outskirts of the mass, a man sat. Staring. Weighing. Contemplating. Looking at the protestors. They disgusted him from balls to bones. Filthy mutie freaks and their mutie-lover friends. He had been counseled to wait, to grit his teeth until good God-fearing _human_ men and women could be roused in sufficient strength to sweep the filth out of their cities, their schools, their lives. So they could keep their children safe. Clean. But he didn't want to wait. He had an opportunity. Here. Now. They had friends in the cops, friends who believed as they did. They'd help a true patriot out.
He turned the key in the ignition and the old Studebaker rumbled to life. Be a shame to sacrifice it for the Cause, but the elders would look upon him with pride.
It was time to end some muties.
Marie-Ange had just texted Topaz to call her out of the office and into the other side of the protest - the empathic witch would be exceptionally powered around something like this and if it got violent, she wanted things in place ahead of time.
The chime of a return text sounded before she heard shouts, and the over-gassed engine of a car tearing out of a parking garage. A grey-green car, curves and long lines, something out of an old pulp novel.
It peeled out of the garage exit, and cut a turn poorly, fishtailing a bit and clipping a parked truck.
Recovering from the fishtail, the man stomped the gas pedal, aiming the car right at the middle of the mass of protestors. He couldn't help it, he whooped in sheer joy as he looked to end some muties today. He'd be a martyr, beloved by the cause as a true believer.
Unfortunately for his dreams of martyrdom and dead muties at his hand the first person he encountered was six and a half feet of ... no. Wait. Seven plus feet of gleaming steel, shredded clothes flopping around onto the ground. Then he hit the steering wheel as the car went from a screeching roar to a dead halt.
Car, meet Colossus.
Sighing, Piotr reached down to unpeel the car from his legs with a shriek of tormented metal The actual impact didn't bother him overmuch physically but the clothes he was wearing didn't give enough to accommodate his new form. His modesty was covered, luckily, but his jeans and his boots were a loss. Calmly, he walked around to the driver's side of the car and gave the door handle a tug. Feeling the door either locked or warped into place, he reached into the metal of the door and tore it off its hinges. Placing the door onto the pavement, he leaned his upper body in to see if the driver was injured in any way.
The driver, not surprisingly, did not react. It would've been impressive if he had, the impact and lack of an airbag meant he cracked his forehead against the steering wheel, and now the older man was unconscious, bleeding from his now broken nose.
Marie-Ange dropped her phone into her pocket, and her cards into her bag, and rushed over. That. was why the tall man looked familiar, yet not. The face was different enough that he'd just been another tall russian in a city that had dozens - but now. He was unmistakable. She pulled another phone entirely from inside her coat, and dialed emergency services as she crossed the street. "Yes, hello, I need to report a car accident. Grey Studebaker, in District X. One unconscious driver. No passengers. Thank you." And she hung up, and the burner phone went right back into her coat. It could end up in Topaz's void bag later if needed.
She tapped the tall metallic man's elbow with her hand to get his attention. "Police are on the way. If you want to stay, I have video of the accident to prove you did nothing wrong. If you need to leave, I will not tell them anything about you." In her hand was a business card.
Piotr, still in his metallic form, carefully took the card from the ... young redheaded woman he nearly knocked over not even an hour ago. "Thank you." he said carefully, holding her card for want of anywhere secure to put it. He glanced down at it, hoping it would have her name on it, but alas, it was a card for some place called the Xavier Institute. But ah, there was a name. And a number. "Marie-Ange." he said carefully, the French name sounding fairly foreign in his metallic Russian mouth. "You may call me Colossus." he offered, for wont of a card of his own. "I do not think I wish to speak to the Americanski police." he said, and then gathered the tattered remains of his clothing. Wallet, check. Phone, check. Satchel - no check. Run over by the car and he'd already drawn too much attention to himself. "Au revoir." he said, then looked for a convenient lightly obscured place that would be safe for him to change back and then disappear as best he could into the crowd.
"Colossus." Of course it was. "Betty's, on the corner has a men's room with a lock. Tell them that Angie will owe them a favor, and will get a double box of cinnamon rolls and pay for three if they ask questions, but they never ask questions. " Marie-Ange said, almost absently. "I recommend the potato hash or the noodle soup if you also get a bite to eat there." She took a quick photo of the car's license plate and then melted back into the crowd on the sidewalk.
He just nodded, his long legs propelling him through the panicky and shocked crowd quickly before he wound up drawing more attention than he really wanted. He was fairly sure the New York police were not the FSB, but why take chances you don't have to? Now, to see about this Betty's place...
Marie-Ange waited just long enough to see that the tall man did make his way into Betty's, and then eased back out of the crowd. When the car had hit, the man's clothes had shredded - and his satchel had slid over to the other side of the car. She waited for the EMT's to busy themselves with the driver and then grabbed the bag. It was a smaller portfolio bag - she had a similar one, if nicer - the kind you took to studio time. Inside was a now broken canvas, with the ruined picture of a young blonde girl.
One she knew far too well - they'd been trying to keep Illyana Rasputin on their radar to no avail for months.
Once again, her phone was pulled from her bag, and this time, Marie-Ange dialed a number. "Amanda? Yes, we have one small problem. I found Illyana's brother. He's in Betty's now, a car hit him. Yes, he is fine. The car is not."
Going into Mutant Town was not one of Piotr's favorite places to go but when you needed to bow to your capitalist overlords then one did what one had to to make food, rent, and gym fees.
In this case, food, rent, and gym fees would hopefully be coming from a patron who wanted a formal oil portrait done of his youngest daughter. So into the case went a sketchbook, pencils of various uses, and a small selection of paints and brushes. Which reminded him with a sigh that he needed to get new brushes soon. His were ... not dead yet, but definitely standing in grave having a conversation with official about time of death.
If he caught the right bus combinations, he could be at the client's in an hour. He dragged a brush through his hair and his beard, then glanced down at himself. Today was a Piotr day, as most days were, so he wanted to dress "artistic" but not shabby. He finally settled on a good pair of jeans, his boots, and a tight tank top that showed off his physique to good affect but was still totally decent. Light tracksuit coat over it, and he was off to visit his client.
Unfortunately for Piotr's dreams of making his appointment on time, the closer he got to Mutant Town the more jacked up traffic got. There was some sort of a demonstration going on and Piotr, raised as a good little Communist, avoided politics like the plague. At least openly.
Of -course- she'd drawn the short straw on the dead drop walk, of course the X Lives Matter protests were spilling out off the street they'd started on. Marie-Ange stopped, phone in hand. to discreetly take photos of the edges of the protest. It hopefully looked like any other well dressed women taking a streetcorner selfie.
She could see the protest getting ragged around the edges, a small clump of people breaking away to duck down a street, the flashing red and blue lights of the NYPD creeping closer. A quick text back to the office, and the photos were uploaded and being analyzed.
A quick one-handed shuffle, and she had a pair of cards in her hand - The Tower, which she expected. Protests were easily driven to chaos and they were certainly risky in terms of destruction but this one was not there - yet. The other though - her art deco Deck showed the Chariot as an armored man in a old convertible Studebaker.
Piotr finally got off the last bus he needed to take, but it dropped him right into the fringes of the protest. Still early for them, mostly a lot of visible mutants and their allies chanting things and swirling about in small groups, talking themselves up for something bigger. Piotr tried to skirt the edges as best he could, but it wasn't easy with being six and a half feet tall and carrying an awkward bag. Which, he also just realized, still had an old painting he'd done of the Snowflake when she was a girl. Before she disappeared without a trace, never to be seen again.
Steeling himself, he was contemplating a cup of strong tea, if he could get something like that here, but then shook his head as he decided against it. Nah. Best to make it to the client, show off what he could do, and hopefully land the commission. He could certainly use the money. Being forced to divert, he moved as best he could through a hopefully-less-dense section of the gathering of protesters, just wanting to get through before something exploded. He almost bowled over a slender redheaded woman carrying ... a deck of cards? That was off. "So sorry." he said, his Russian accent shining through. "Things are a little tense out here today."
"It is not going to get better, I think. This sort of protest boils over quickly." Marie-Ange had taken a step back to avoid the tall man, and still had to take another quick step to keep from being knocked over. He was taller, and closer than she'd guessed.
"I just hope nobody gets hurt." he offered to the young lady, making sure to give her more than enough space. He wasn't here to be threatening or to intimidate and he'd hate to cause her any additional distress. "Please excuse me." he said, and then turned to make his way further into the district. Soonest in, sooner he could leave, he supposed.
The man looked just familiar enough - something in the back of her head, that Marie-Ange paused for a moment. He had an art bag - but he certainly wasn't one of N's people, they all knew who the eyepatch wearing redhead was, or at least enough of them did that she had a little stack of business cards with etsy stores, squarespace webpages and deviantart links. Her dead drop location on this block was empty, it almost always was, and the digital one wasn't giving off a signal, so she had no reason to linger.
But she did anyway, a moment of concern for the protest in the back of her head, and the weight of those two cards eating at her.
On the fringes of the crowd, she could see movement, and shouts echoed up the block. Mostly chanted protest slogans, and a few "Magento is right!" mixed in.
The protest was getting worse. It pulsed and seethed, like an animal testing the limits of its leash. And sooner or later, that leash would break. Piotr, oblivious, was smiling to himself as he departed the domicile of his potential new patron. The meeting had gone really well, he'd met the child he was going to paint along with her father, the father seemed impressed with his artistic ability, and the child herself was a delight. But as if to remind him of his plight, his stomach growled and he resolved to grab something cheap and tasty from a street vendor on his way home. He'd earned it.
Unfortunately for him, life had other plans for him today.
On the outskirts of the mass, a man sat. Staring. Weighing. Contemplating. Looking at the protestors. They disgusted him from balls to bones. Filthy mutie freaks and their mutie-lover friends. He had been counseled to wait, to grit his teeth until good God-fearing _human_ men and women could be roused in sufficient strength to sweep the filth out of their cities, their schools, their lives. So they could keep their children safe. Clean. But he didn't want to wait. He had an opportunity. Here. Now. They had friends in the cops, friends who believed as they did. They'd help a true patriot out.
He turned the key in the ignition and the old Studebaker rumbled to life. Be a shame to sacrifice it for the Cause, but the elders would look upon him with pride.
It was time to end some muties.
Marie-Ange had just texted Topaz to call her out of the office and into the other side of the protest - the empathic witch would be exceptionally powered around something like this and if it got violent, she wanted things in place ahead of time.
The chime of a return text sounded before she heard shouts, and the over-gassed engine of a car tearing out of a parking garage. A grey-green car, curves and long lines, something out of an old pulp novel.
It peeled out of the garage exit, and cut a turn poorly, fishtailing a bit and clipping a parked truck.
Recovering from the fishtail, the man stomped the gas pedal, aiming the car right at the middle of the mass of protestors. He couldn't help it, he whooped in sheer joy as he looked to end some muties today. He'd be a martyr, beloved by the cause as a true believer.
Unfortunately for his dreams of martyrdom and dead muties at his hand the first person he encountered was six and a half feet of ... no. Wait. Seven plus feet of gleaming steel, shredded clothes flopping around onto the ground. Then he hit the steering wheel as the car went from a screeching roar to a dead halt.
Car, meet Colossus.
Sighing, Piotr reached down to unpeel the car from his legs with a shriek of tormented metal The actual impact didn't bother him overmuch physically but the clothes he was wearing didn't give enough to accommodate his new form. His modesty was covered, luckily, but his jeans and his boots were a loss. Calmly, he walked around to the driver's side of the car and gave the door handle a tug. Feeling the door either locked or warped into place, he reached into the metal of the door and tore it off its hinges. Placing the door onto the pavement, he leaned his upper body in to see if the driver was injured in any way.
The driver, not surprisingly, did not react. It would've been impressive if he had, the impact and lack of an airbag meant he cracked his forehead against the steering wheel, and now the older man was unconscious, bleeding from his now broken nose.
Marie-Ange dropped her phone into her pocket, and her cards into her bag, and rushed over. That. was why the tall man looked familiar, yet not. The face was different enough that he'd just been another tall russian in a city that had dozens - but now. He was unmistakable. She pulled another phone entirely from inside her coat, and dialed emergency services as she crossed the street. "Yes, hello, I need to report a car accident. Grey Studebaker, in District X. One unconscious driver. No passengers. Thank you." And she hung up, and the burner phone went right back into her coat. It could end up in Topaz's void bag later if needed.
She tapped the tall metallic man's elbow with her hand to get his attention. "Police are on the way. If you want to stay, I have video of the accident to prove you did nothing wrong. If you need to leave, I will not tell them anything about you." In her hand was a business card.
Piotr, still in his metallic form, carefully took the card from the ... young redheaded woman he nearly knocked over not even an hour ago. "Thank you." he said carefully, holding her card for want of anywhere secure to put it. He glanced down at it, hoping it would have her name on it, but alas, it was a card for some place called the Xavier Institute. But ah, there was a name. And a number. "Marie-Ange." he said carefully, the French name sounding fairly foreign in his metallic Russian mouth. "You may call me Colossus." he offered, for wont of a card of his own. "I do not think I wish to speak to the Americanski police." he said, and then gathered the tattered remains of his clothing. Wallet, check. Phone, check. Satchel - no check. Run over by the car and he'd already drawn too much attention to himself. "Au revoir." he said, then looked for a convenient lightly obscured place that would be safe for him to change back and then disappear as best he could into the crowd.
"Colossus." Of course it was. "Betty's, on the corner has a men's room with a lock. Tell them that Angie will owe them a favor, and will get a double box of cinnamon rolls and pay for three if they ask questions, but they never ask questions. " Marie-Ange said, almost absently. "I recommend the potato hash or the noodle soup if you also get a bite to eat there." She took a quick photo of the car's license plate and then melted back into the crowd on the sidewalk.
He just nodded, his long legs propelling him through the panicky and shocked crowd quickly before he wound up drawing more attention than he really wanted. He was fairly sure the New York police were not the FSB, but why take chances you don't have to? Now, to see about this Betty's place...
Marie-Ange waited just long enough to see that the tall man did make his way into Betty's, and then eased back out of the crowd. When the car had hit, the man's clothes had shredded - and his satchel had slid over to the other side of the car. She waited for the EMT's to busy themselves with the driver and then grabbed the bag. It was a smaller portfolio bag - she had a similar one, if nicer - the kind you took to studio time. Inside was a now broken canvas, with the ruined picture of a young blonde girl.
One she knew far too well - they'd been trying to keep Illyana Rasputin on their radar to no avail for months.
Once again, her phone was pulled from her bag, and this time, Marie-Ange dialed a number. "Amanda? Yes, we have one small problem. I found Illyana's brother. He's in Betty's now, a car hit him. Yes, he is fine. The car is not."
