Marie-Ange, Kevin, talking shop.

[xp_tarot]

Marie-Ange and Kevin go out for a lunch, and talk shop. X-Force, succession planning, recruitment planning.



The Perraud Viré-Clessé 2022 was an unexpected choice from the sommelier, since the cellar at Nice Matin typically leaned towards the south of France for their vintages, and never to the east for a white. Kevin had taken a few minutes to pick the woman's brain about the specific Mâconnais, far more familiar with the reds from Burgundy, taking the occasional small sip as she exhausted what knew before departing. He took one more long sniff before setting it back down.

"I do love it when they make something with a Chardonnay grape that doesn't taste like the ground the cask up into it before bottling."

"This is delightful." Marie-Ange agreed, almost cheerfully. "I could be entirely precious about this and talk about vanilla and hints of melon, but I think the sommelier might strike if we asked her any more questions." She had a small wry smile on her face. "I have to completely reconsider what I am going to order, because this is perfect, but perhaps not with Moroccan Salmon."

"They don't surprise me often, but it is nice when they do. It's one thing to go to Benoit's and hunt through the thirty-four page wine list for a decades old vintage but it's a completely different pleasure to run across something new and modern for the palate in a slightly less formal setting." He said with a nod to the restaurant dining room.

Marie-Ange made an agreeable returning nod. "Yes, and it is a pleasant way to be shaken out of the usual dinner order. The sommelier takes a risk, I cannot repay her by ordering one of the same things I usually have, yes? I could order the short ribs, but this would be lost for it."

"You're very precious. I'm ordering the short ribs." Kevin said, a viper quick smile in his retort. She was used to it, his constant need to prod and needle, looking for weak points. "So I have a few agenda items. I think Gabe is starting to feel a lot more comfortable out of country and away from the mansion. His operational work keeps getting better but there's absolutely some personal drift there. You have thoughts on how you want to handle it?"

"I think if he is doing good work, forcing him to stop is bad for everyone." Marie-Ange said, after a brief pause to order - Sole Milanese. "Except himself, but Gabriel has always been a touch, ah, self-destructive. I would call it ambitious if I thought he had some long term goal. Could we drag him back in, yes? Would he welcome it, perhaps no." She took a sip of wine, contemplative over the rim of the glass. "Regular training with the rest of the team, but unless he wants to craft strong ties to the mansion again, we do ourselves more harm trying to force him home."

"I'm going to book him some additional post-run stuff. Nothing more than an extra few days a month and frankly, I'd like him to be part of working on the analysis as opposed to just being briefed. But past that, we'll let him have his head for now." Kevin said, leaning back a bit. "Clea and Topaz. Clea's open to field work, she just needs some reps. Topaz... we've let her backstop Wanda and Amanda for now, but we need to focus on her operational skill set more. That's on us, not her, at this point. But we need to pull the trigger at some point."

"Absolutely. I want her in the field. Her magic skills are considerable, her field work is..." Marie-Ange made a faint shrug. "Acceptable, but she contains better. Plus it will get her out of some anger. She processes better if she is busy, and our new resource in Louisiana comes with burdens for her as well as Amanda. We can push her out of a little complacency. I am going to..." A moment of guilt, or disgust - or both - crossed her face. "Push her to use her empathy more. I hired her for it, and then let crisis after crisis stop me from asking her to do anything with it except fuel magic."

"Good. I'm also going to pull Lee in for a bit. She's getting a little too flip about her extracurriculars and I think she needs a refresher in her reporting." Kevin made a vague gesture. "Nothing earthshaking... just a little tune up."

"If you had not said it, I was going to. She is a very fast little sports car, we have to bring her in for maintenance.' Marie-Ange considered the metaphor, considered how many ways it could be twisted, and opted to drink wine instead. "I want Artie working with Sarah Rushman. She can do much of the same street contact work he used to, and with less risk of dying in a wet alley. She will at least heal from stabbing."

"Was that a Little Red Corvette reference?" Kevin paused. "Didn't that come out before you were born? Also, Artie could benefit from being stabbed a little." He said, ignoring her expression. "Not a lot. But scars are records of teaching moments, as the kids say."

"I know Prince songs." Marie-Ange said, utterly blandly. "Also I said death, not stabbing. One is less educational, and Artie could stand to teach as much as learn. Plus Sarah is stabby, so what is the phrase, we get a two-fer?' She gave a wry, teasing smile. "Quite seriously, he is a good analyst and Sarah would benefit from the training. Would you a like a touch of bitter irony? A version of our Sarah once helped train Artie.'

"You all lead very weird lives." Kevin said, taking a sip from his glass. "Not boring normal like mine and my 90 years of high stakes intelligence and then swapping identities as a shapeshifter. Seriously though, Artie is a good analyst. That's why I pushed him that way. Also, if the mansion ever goes tits up, Artie alone could keep this shop in the black with his forgeries. I worked with people at State who used the actual official printers to make fake ID for our people and that kid might be better."

Marie-Ange almost preened for a moment, all the skill was Artie, but he had been her student once upon a time. "He is so very good. Someday I am going to get him a six month apprenticeship somewhere and we are all going to come out of it with Manet and Seurat paintings."

"Hopper for me. I know it is drastically over-exposed at this point, but I'd love to hang 'Nighthawks' on my wall." Kevin's grin was shutter quick. "And that leaves Sarah. She's a good hand to hand combatant, she's smart, and she's tied into the New York underground. I just feel we haven't figured out how to get the most out of her while building her skill set."

"That is why I want her to work with Artie. It is going to make him angry, and I want to test that. Can he do the job and actually put aside every personal problem. He knows the last Sarah, he will know what this one is capable of. If he cannot do it, we put her with Gabriel or... " She gave a small little shrug, and took another drink. "Just run her through everyone until we see what sticks. It worked for - well, it worked for me."

"Oh, but you had Saint Pete and Saint Remy to mentor you, or so I'm told." Kevin said wryly. After their experience in the alternate future, he had left with a deep understanding of the people who had put the original X-Force together, despite never actually meeting the real people. He'd been assured that the constructs pulled from their memories were accurate, but all memories were a little suspect. "I like Sarah. She's got - aha - the right bones for any operative. Smart, resourceful, and fucking deadly. She'll get there."

Marie-Ange badly covered her snort with a bite of food. "Puns? Really?" She nodded though. "I agree. She has all the right starting points. Alright, do we want to talk about anyone we want to acquire? I think right now the mansion is having a three for one deal on Guthries."

"I'm not the most plugged into the new cohort, but past Smith - who Hardy would kill me if I recruited - most of the rest are either too young or don't strike me initially as the intelligence type. Still, worth keeping an eye on." Kevin shrugged. "Still, if one of them shows some interest and isn't scared away by our recruiting pitch, I'm happy to boot camp them into something useful. Especially now we're a person down."

"Youngest Guthrie perhaps, and Shatterstar - the stabby one that Amanda's earthquake student has a crush on." Marie-Ange suggested. "Otherwise, I agree, and I am not certain about either of those. A bit too limited in scope for Shatterstar. Interestingly, Clarice Ferguson quit the X-Men. I am not sure she is at all suited to intellgence - she and I were classmates, she is not a subtle woman. Plus she is bright purple, but goodness what we could do with a teleporter, no?"

"I can make anyone work but yeah, we wouldn't deploy Clarice to blend into the populace. Doesn't mean she couldn't have a role here if she wants it." He took another sip of his wine. "That's really the main thing. At this point, I think they need to come to us, dazzled by our wicked ways and wanting to learn more for themselves. Otherwise, I think we keep our options for potential currently outside of the mansion."

"Certainly. More seeing who to drop subtle hints to, rather than an outright recruitment pitch. No one works here who does not want to, but sometimes it takes that little moment to think about thinking about the job. Plant the right seed, and they come to us, plant the wrong one and we have a perfectly good potential operative wasting her time with Quire." Marie-Ange did not even dislike Quentin - she just thought Sue Storm was wasting her time there. Hacker, Invisibility powers, business connections, she could've crumbled empires with that woman.

"You're not wrong but remember. A good intelligence agent believes. There's no way to shortcut that process."

"No, but sometimes you have to open the door so someone can find what to believe in. I would not have taken this job if had been offered to me."

"OK, so who gets to man the kiosk at the Xavier's job fair?" Kevin said snarkily.

"Please. That would work and you know it. Promise at least two of them the chance to enact righteous revenge and I could have horrible assassin children in a month. I do not want horrible assassin children, but I do want to make sure the door is open enough they can peep in and see."

"That sounds salacious. Or maybe we need to cycle people through the shop. Let them know what we actually do. That Thirteen might be an option. With Darcy gone, we need something to drive the Beast."

"I can talk to Doug about the Frost quints. He had one acting as a personal assistant when he was ill, and like I said. If someone had let me recruit Susan Storm." Marie-Ange's expression was teasing though, an almost wry smile. "Maybe we do need to let them cycle through. Actually bring some of them in for consultations. It would probably do good to have them also see how boring our jobs are half the time. "

"Most the time. I'm the changeling secret agent and I have to pay for my super cars."

"The last super car you received was an RV, and it still needs a new transmission overhaul, if Scott's last email to me is to be believed."

"I rebuilt the transmission last summer. Scott's just pissed that I won't let him swap in an ultra-modern engine and jet boosters on the back." Kevin huffed. "Kids and their toys."