revivalproject | Clarice's Event Catch-All

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Clarice's Event Catch-All | OTA

WHO: Clarice and youuuuuuuu
WHERE: Various places around Coruscant
WHAT: Exploring, investigating ... and being a bit of an art snob
WHEN: All through the event!
WARNINGS: None yet, but if anything worthy comes up I'll put it in the comment headers. <3

Starling had scarcely had time to get her bearings on Temba before she woke up on the ship, to the strange message. It hadn't taken much to wake her: she'd slept lightly, and took a speed-run of a shower, not wanting to waste the precious hot water afforded to the crew. She didn't want to step out onto new ground and make the impression of a hot mess, after all. After combing out her damp hair, she put it up in a ponytail to keep it off her neck, then shook out her only set of clothes, judiciously inspecting the cashmere sweater for wrinkles and wishing for an iron. Ah well. It was what it was. She'd been provided with credit, at least. Maybe the first order of business - after breakfast - was to get something new to wear.

A: (In Person) Everything will always be alright - when we go shopping
The amount of options were even more staggering than New York, or Paris, Clarice marveled, as the taxi dropped her off in Coruscant's shopping district. She'd counted her credits on the ship, not wanting to be tacky in counting them in public.

She starts off by window shopping, browsing from store to store to get a feel for the prices and the styles: what people consider high fashion, lowbrow, and somewhere in between. She decides a sturdy outfit, something working-class, would be the best choice for back on Temba, but there was also nothing wrong with spoiling herself a little and having something that would make her look good should a situation call for it. Feel free to find her as she's molesting various pieces of clothing, rubbing it between her fingers to check texture or thread count, or as she's sitting down on a bench to try on a smart-looking yet rugged pair of boots.

B: (Network) And you told me all your plans - how you would never let them go
New as she is, Starling takes her responsibility and her new mission seriously. The mystery of Coruscant and the many people brought to Temba from this place has piqued her interest, and so her first thought as a newcomer is to seek them out. She takes out her comm device - a new, strange thing in itself - and taps on the garish pink icon, thinking a moment before composing her message.

Hello, everyone. My name is Clarice Starling. I only just arrived in Temba the day before we were sent here to Coruscant, and I admit that I have many questions ... particularly for those of you who are familiar with this world. In the interest of helping the Agri, would any of you be willing to sit with me for a brief interview of sorts? I would be more than willing to get you a cup of whatever equivalent to coffee they have here, or light lunch, to thank you for your time.

C: (In Person) A bittersweet, evocative song... that doesn't remind us of Musetta's Waltz
After a long day of investigating and attempting to do what she was brought here to do, Clarice changes into the nicer of the ensembles she's bought for herself: a jewel-green gown with a white shawl to stave off any evening chill. The opera house is advertising a new Bith opera, whatever that might mean, and Clarice shows up to purchase herself a ticket with confidence, sliding into the crowd as though she belongs there. Anyone who hasn't met her yet may just mistake her for a native, even as she purchases a program, hoping to learn a bit more about what she's about to indulge in.

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Starling had noticed him out of the corner of her eye, of course, and seen him coming. The drink was a nice touch, she thought, accepting it graciously with an oh-so-subtle nod of thanks and a polite smile as he rambled on.

He might have been playing the part of the Nice Guy Just Looking Out For Her, but that seemed a little too heavy-handed for a man who could move so suavely through a crowd and present an offering with that kind of ease. Not to mention his syntax, just formal enough for the crowd at first. 'To see her home', juxtaposed against a truncated sentance such as 'can't stand her'. He was posturing, posing, that much was apparent. It was the motive that intrigued her, right along with the egregious way he was treating that beautiful tuxedo. It looked like he'd already worn it to at least one function without pressing it in between.

Her reply, then, was a carefully pitched hum that held only the slightest hint of cynicism. "I admit, I haven't given it much thought. I'm looking forward to the artists' performance more than anything else." She tipped the flute to him. "To culture, Mr. ...?"

Edited (spelling correction) 2021-03-13 06:27 (UTC)

Though she neatly sidestepped any pitfalls of trying to join in on Tony's gossiping to blend in, Clarice did encourage him with an invitation that got his focus back on her with a slow grin. He let the question hang for a moment in that smile, head tilted slightly like he was asking if she was sure she wanted to know, before raising a hand to insist, "Please." She wasn't even asking the right question. "Call me Tony."

He offered the gesturing hand then to take hers, but what he asked in return was, "Big fan?," with his nose faintly wrinkled just enough to be dubious of how committed she was to the opera circuit. "The performances, well, that's one thing, but there's not much they can do with the abysmal material they've been putting out all season. The best I can hope for is that this one actually has a story."

"This is the first Bith opera I've been to," she admits. "But if they're not keen on anything with storylines, you can hardly call it opera, can you?" A judgemental eyebrow accompanied that last remark, and she decided to test him right back, namedropping one of the race names she'd heard while barhopping with Cayde. "I'm mostly familiar with Toydarian opera."

He was trying to read her hard, play her for some motive. It wasn't to bed her, though, she was almost certain. His focus was more on her social and cultural prowess than the decollotage she was unashamedly showing off. She gave him a glimpse of bare shoulder as she adjusted her shawl, just to be sure, her pale skin spattered with freckles.

"You're giving me a few misgivings, Tony. And not just about why you're concerned about how many offers I have to escort me home."

There was no way for Tony to know if she had made up the term 'Toydarian' wholesale or happened to do some local opera research before arriving, making a glimmer of delight in his expression slip before he managed a thoughtful nod, of course, a woman of taste. And one who could easily distract him as he said, "The visuals are going to be a treat, then. Very fantastical, over the top, but much more shallow. They're just not as political as they used to be, afraid to show a little more...skin." His gaze did trail down her arm, about as openly as she had drawn his attention, taking his time to meet her eye again with a wicked grin.

With a flick of his fingers it was gone, so he could say with all of the sincerity he could muster with a hand to his heart, "I know this is going to be hard to believe, but I'm also flying solo tonight. It suddenly doesn't seem so lucky that I've got myself a private box and nobody to share it with. I was just going to make my appearances, have a drink, and slip out when the lights went down, but the strangest thing happened."

Ah, there it was, the male gaze she'd become so accustomed and indoctrined to, and a little bit resentful of. That flicker of delight was telling, too: he was, indeed, playing games with her, and enjoying himself. Starling, too, appreciated a good spar of wits.

"You know your shallow things as well as the sophisticated, then, it seems." She smiled, a controlled expression that said she could speak in multiple meanings just as fluently as he could. "I wonder which you prefer... or is there even a distinct preference?"

She folded her arms, tapping her program lightly against her ribs as he mentioned the private box and started in. There it was: the pitch she'd been waiting for, the play. It was all she could do not to smirk. She feigned a socialite's gossip-ravenous sparkling eyes, the picture of half the scrabbling crowd around them waiting for the doors to open.

"My stars," she said with the graceful raise of her eyebrows. "And how strange was it?"

Her little tease might have been meant to leave Tony wondering, but that definitely hadn't been Tony's intention and he looked faintly scandalized that she would even have to ask, fingers splayed where they were still on his chest. "My only preference is my pleasure," he grinned, in no way ashamed of her implications, but that was a different game entirely. She'd have plenty of time to get to know that one, if the Agrii had anything to say about it.

'My stars' was almost a cute enough exclamation to break Tony's grin into a snort, but he managed to school it enough to look properly like he was sharing a secret as he curled a beckoning finger before slinging both hands casually in his pockets. "A most exquisite creature that hasn't been seen on the planet in decades at least, uniquely beautiful in the star system--so much so that the show that opened the season, right here, was about one, if you can believe it. I'm having the most difficult time remembering the name, you must know it--long, red hair, pale skin, and she walks right into this very hall. The superstitious have said that meeting one is good luck."

That just about did it for Starling, and she laughed, the sound musical and light. Maybe Tony had been on to something, as a few heads swiveled at the sound. "And are you superstitious, Tony?"

He was good, she'd give him that. Suave. He'd been practicing this little game for his pleasure for a long time, that much was evident. He was used to winning: that shameless grin was the clearest sign she needed. She wondered what would be more amusing: to see what happened to those who let him win, or what his reaction would be if he lost.

"The show was called The Deep Roller, if I remember," she continued. If Tony knew his ornithology, he might recall that among starlings, there were two genetic markers: a shallow roller, and a deep roller. If two deep rollers bred, their offspring would not have the werewithal to know that they were coming too close to the ground, fail to pull out of the roll, and die. Risk takers to the extreme, was the implication. Those who flirted with danger. "Agent Starling is a deep roller," Hannibal Lecter had once said to an acquaintance who had relayed the anecdote to her. "Let us hope one of her parents was not."

Now that Tony had heard that laugh, his reaction to losing might actually be heartbreak because it was enough to make him immediately brighten and break enough to mutter, "Yeah? Not bad?," as though they were working together on what it would take to charm her. He'd keep it on file.

He very much was not a bird guy, though, or animals in general, if he could help it, so the reference was lost on him even as a new smile touched his eyes briefly at her easy answer. Maybe it was the talk of luck, but his best guess was that she was trying to slip him a gambling reference, and came around to 'risk taker' from the side door. "Superstitious, no, but I might believe in luck. Is that weird?" he replied, hand out again to try to find the line between the two concepts. The lights were already dimming, making the crowd shift around them to filter to their seats as he continued, "Probability, that's a real thing, quantifiable, by definition. And I have a knack for tipping the odds. Won't say no to a good sign, though, it's all got to mean something, part of the math."

She took a sip of her drink, finding the bubbles just enough without being too overpowering, the sweet flavor light but not cloying. Whatever it was, he'd made a good choice. As the lights began to lower, she realized it was time to decide.

Deep roll, Starling. Why the hell not.

"Odds are good that we're going to miss the overture, if you don't show us to that booth, then," she said, offering her hand.

While the suggestion was met with another disarming grin, Tony hesitated for a moment, his cold calculation narrowing as he considered pressing his luck and finding out if he could convince Clarice to skip the show and find a party. That Tony hadn't really intended to sit down and watch the opera hadn't entirely been a fabrication; if he did, he knew he had a pretty reliable pattern of being out cold within ten minutes, and he had a fair bit of sleep that had been reprioritized since their arrival.

If Clarice had been working on half-truths as well, though, she was genuinely here with some interest in the show, and not a strange man luring her away on a trail of gossip. They all had taken the Agrii's 'learn' a little differently. So he took her hand, at first in a dainty pinch garnished with his other arm folded behind his back and a bow of his head, only to drop that character again quickly in another laugh and linking their arms more comfortably to keep her close. Some of the rituals were familiar, but Tony wasn't really prepared for what the theatre actually looked like, so while he could bluff his way through with a ticket that clearly wasn't in his name, he did go, "Oh," as they stepped into the booth and he tried to make sense of the...stage. He had to move beyond their seats to lean against the railing curiously, peering down into the seating below and searching for the orchestra.

Once they were in the booth, she closed the curtains behind them. The seating was not quite as luxurious as she would have hoped: the chairs looked almost like something she'd expect to see in a ship's cockpit. Lighted panels on the arms no doubt called private servants. She flicked a small toggle switch on the side and the panel lights went out. Good.

"Sometimes it's worth doing more than just making an appearance," she said softly, coming up and kneeling on the floor next to him to inspect it all with interest. This close, she could keep her voice just scarcely above a whisper and be heard. "People's stories tell a lot more about their culture in a few hours than months of sociological study. Values. Dreams. Politics. Things that can persist for hundreds of years and be passed down to certain people. People who might find themselves somewhere without knowing why."

A pause, and she turned to face him. "I owe you an apology. You gave me your name, but I never gave you mine. Clarice."

Oh, okay, they were kneeling, making it feel more like a sleepover than an opera as Tony knelt with her and watched Clarice just as curiously as he had the strange projectors that he hadn't anticipated from this production. He hadn't anticipated that gown and that posture to lead him to smiling back at her as she shared her name with him like it was a secret. "Dolcissimo Clarice, la luce," he greeted in a whisper back, and maybe that wasn't a history they shared, it was impossible to tell, but she made it seem like it fit her nonetheless. Hopefully, it wasn't entirely lost on her because Tony didn't mean to entirely discount what histories could build and the stories they produced, it just wasn't where his focus was.

"Who said I was here for the culture?" he asked, recoiling as though offended before he was smiling easily again and gesturing with a nod toward the crowd, not the stage. "The future of a place like this isn't here on this planet. It's practically dead already, they're just not going to know it for a few centuries yet. One of those guys, he owns a droid factory, probably its own planet, too, if my math is right, and it always is. Nothing is made here. Dead. Hell, that guy, he doesn't even know how they're made. But he's one step closer to the people who do..." And that was what Tony was here for, peering around the audience again like he might recognize this droid-manufacturer on sight. "How people spend money says a lot more about their culture than the stories they tell themselves." It wasn't an argument, by any means, more of an offered insight.

"Thought you were Tony, not Lorenzo," she quipped, smoothing her program out on the railing so they could both look. Anyone familiar with the expansive, soap-opera like the Medicis wasn't ignorant of culture in the least, despite his response.

So he was an economist, an numbers and business guy. She could appreciate his approach and see the value in it, and said so with a quiet, smooth raise of her eyebrows. "I don't know if you can quantify apples against oranges. Arts and business have always been a bit like a vinaigrette. If you shake them up against each other regularly, they work well together, but left to their own devices they'll go their separate ways."

She traced the script on the program idly with her fingertips. She'd figured out a decent amount of the Aurabesh from trial and error and what little cryptography she knew... and maybe, just maybe a little help from Wheel of Fortune's RSTLNE rule. "...Incidentally, what are your thoughts on the driods' role in society here? It seems a little ... precarious. Almost on the verge of a civil rights movement."

Edited (added a bit ) 2021-03-16 16:14 (UTC)

She was definitely from an at least similar Earth to Tony's, though the variance there thus far had been great and Tony was definitely going to have to warn Clarice about that, but plenty of people Tony knew and lived in his own house wouldn't be able to pick up what he was putting down as easily, making his smile soft but more genuine than it had been yet as he went back to his study. There were plenty of ways that this gig the Agrii had sprung on them was miserable, isolating and painful, and for that little bit of easy familiarity, Tony touched Clarice's elbow with a private promise to make it easier for her. Even if they didn't always work well together.

"Incidentally..." he replied, bunching his shoulders up then and already feeling like his answer was too loud and layered to be whispering into their dark opera box. Not that something like that would stop him. "I don't know if you're right, but only because they don't seem aware of it, and there's a...tension." He pressed the heels of his hands together to try to measure it, fingers ever restlessly drumming over his knuckles. "On the one hand, this level of automation that they've achieved, the level of artificial intelligence and breadth of capability, it should mean that all of that money I'm following should be meaningless. These people have created a society that can function independently of labour, and all of the people who can't afford to be here, right now, I'm pretty sure they know that. But, hey, here's the really sociopathic thing, have you talked to any of those droids? They are deliberately constructed with fully independent personalities. They can easily be defined as conscious. And that's a choice these manufacturers made, to make creatures capable of independent thought, for the express purpose of slave labour that doesn't even replace, only augments and devalues the labour of the existing population. They're their own class." Clearly, he had been stewing on this without someone to bounce it off of for a while.

"I've had a few brief conversations," Clarice agrees. "Mostly with protocol droids, the tall ones that do translations for tourists, but I've asked them a question or two."

She watches the orchestra and lets the overture thread through the silence between them, a pleasant backdrop for her to gather her thoughts against. She could have taken offense at Tony's touch, but it had been innocuous, simple, the sort of brush of fingers she and Mapp had given each other countless times passing in hallways or when one was walking by the couch on the way to their shared kitchen in the duplex. It spoke of cameraderie, fellowship, more than intimacy - and she welcomed it for what it was. As for the subject at hand ...

"You're right. It strikes me as not only odd, but a little cruel that they'd manufacture something to take the place of the lower class so completely, right down to personalities that can feel oppression. Sociopathic is a damn fine word for it ... and yet the people here look on it with the same sort of indifference that the South of the 40s and 50s did separate bathrooms and water fountains. They figure, it is what it is. They've got the opportunity to elevate themselves beyond class and politics and just focus on ... I can't even call it humanity, with artificial intelligence this advanced. On ... on the living experience, I guess? The conscious experience. But they're hitting up against the same walls of hubris every recorded society ever has."

She gestured down to the opera, already unfolding as a star-crossed lovers sort of tragedy, judging by the body language and the tone and pattern of the melodies. "But some things really are universal in the truest sense of the word, whether we want them to be or not, I suppose."

It was slightly unfair that they were speaking of the people of Coruscant as though they were so far outside of themselves, when they had such recognizable reference points between them. They weren't all that different. The reassurance that this private haven afforded, above and separate from the audience, was undermined by those recognizable themes in an artform that should have been entirely alien. At least those themes were aspirational, and Tony watched a beating heart ready to break on the stage at Clarice's direction, chin in his hand and brow knitting in sympathy that felt a lot more like anxiety. The droids were much easier to think about.

"I don't know if they can feel oppression," he murmured eventually. "Or, if they do, if they have the tools to express it. I haven't met one yet, anyway, that has the kind of...philosophical freedom as some artificial life on Earth. And--on some level that's good, because they might not have heroes, like the Torch, but they also don't have terrorists like Ultron sending the whole population into hiding. I had a woman living in my basement because she was too afraid to have a body. But that does make them easier to dismiss, not recognize as part of society because they can't articulate those needs." Separate drinking fountains didn't quite feel like the correct allegory, in effect, in part because the droids didn't seem to have their own community at all. With a hand up to try to capture the thought, Tony offered, "The forums back home weren't designed for people with cognitive impairment, effectively excluding them from participation, their issues don't even make it to the table. The droids weren't designed for the forum."

She wasn't one to break hearts if she could help it, preferring to save or mend them. Alas, this show had already been scripted: she was just as much a spectator as he was, and paying far more attention to her head than her heart, to boot. Intellectual conversation was something she always prized and appreciated, and to have one of such depth in such an unexpected place was holding her fast.

"You seem familiar with a class of artificial life that's way ahead of anything I've ever heard of," she remarked - leaving it more as an observation at the moment than a marvel. She could circle back to that later, once they'd finished the topic at hand to a point they were both satisfied with. Not only that, but he had given her just enough context cues that she was able to follow the threads of his statements without needing clarification.

"But I see your point, regardless. Maybe that span of a hundred years or so you mentioned earlier has to do more with some revelation of theirs, some growth in consciousness, than anything economic. Or - who knows, maybe it's something entirely separate. Maybe it's politics. Maybe it's disaster." She gestured lightly to each section of the orchestra in turn. The music began to swell precipitously, and she smiled a little at her unintentional perfect timing. "Maybe it's the whole orchestra."

There were many, disparate parts of the future of this place that Tony knew for certain would come to pass, littered between the tragedies Cal had told him and the images he had seen in Poe's head and none easy to link together yet into a cohesive blueprint, making him feel like they hindered more than helped his usual crystal clarity of the future to come. There were so many mechanisms in this city alone that were in delicate tension, like the tremulously held note of a string instrument Tony didn't recognize that Clarice had pointed to, that he couldn't predict which way they would break. Did any of them actually tell him anything useful about Agra 10, or Earth?

In the riotous climax of music, Tony listened to the opera more than he watched, unseeing, considering what they were meant to take away from this issue that they had both independently sensed in a population that seemed quite unaware of it, despite not even being from the same Earth. They must not have been, anyway, because it was possible she didn't recognize Tony Stark on sight, but there weren't many Americans that would recognize a Medici but not the name Ultron. "It's not a revelation the droids have to have," he eventually offered absently, still watching the swirl of the performance. "It's the people working in mines and chemical factories that, hell, might not even be necessary with the level of technological capability there is in this place, it's those people who are suspicious of the droids for devaluing their work and have been put in a position where they can't even conceive of a system where a bunch of rich guys aren't holding them by the throat. And none of the people in this theatre would benefit from that change, but it has to be one of them to put that mechanism into place." At least, that was the cleanest shot that Tony could ever see, and had seen incremental successes.

Starling's gaze swung back and forth from the show to Tony like a pendulum - watching the art, then watching the gears turn behind his eyes as another art of his own was at play. He had a sharp, bright, mind, and it reminded her of watching Hannibal think while he played his piano or harpsichord as he read the morning paper. Intellect fascinated her, not because she envied it out of any lack, but because she saw echoes of herself there, chances to engage, and was glad to see it after years of working in indoctrinated places where people thought the way they had been trained to think. When Tony began to speak again, she turned back to the music, listening as he had, placing his thoughts in a palimpsest on top of the story unfolding below: her own attempt at cognitive multitasking.

"You're right," she said with certainty, scanning the boxes and shadowed aisles more than the show. His political theory was sound, his sociological grasp firm. "Some opportunist with a heart black as molasses could absolutely wind this whole place around their finger if they got hold of enough strings attached in the right places. I ... dealt with someone like that, back home. He bought and sold senators like they were stocks, and played with people's lives like paper dolls. I spent ten years of my life catching murderers, drug dealers, and criminals ... but he was the most terrifying human being I ever met. And not because he'd had to have half his face reconstructed."

Though he hadn't be entirely present while he was speaking, Tony was ready to snap to attention at Clarice's catnip response and accept with a disarming grin, "Always am." And he was pretty sure Clarice was right, too, practically a futurist herself based on what Poe had already told them about what happened to this place, but it would have felt like a safe bet even without the insight.

Tony had been perched fairly rigidly to watch the show over the railing, but he sank into his seat on his heels then as he was turned to her, quickly losing interest in the production. He hadn't quite been able to place Clarice in her normal life yet, picturing her perhaps at the front of a lecture hall teaching a soft science, or representing the the ethics board at a Stark development meeting. The catching murderers part, that hadn't figured into the equation yet. "You don't anymore?" he asked first, not sure what to make of her choice of words. Finding out she was anywhere near retirement would be the next surprise. "S.H.I.E.L.D.," he guessed first, eyes narrowed in examination, stalling any attempt to help him find the correct answer. Nope, not quite. He knew, "Interpol," wasn't right even as he said it, smaller than that. "CI--DEA?" he really should have guessed first, 'drug dealers' was a giveaway.

"Nice tries," she said with a curious smile in her voice, sitting back to match him, her legs curling gracefully beneath her. He'd been quick to snap up her praise, almost starving for it, and she caught the first whiff of something sensitive, something wounded underneath all that ego.

"Worked with all three," she said, thoroughly enjoying the game - and being a little bit on the other side of it for once. Though for her part, she knew, they were on equal standing for this joust of wits. It was, as it had always been, fun. Exciting. There had already been fire in her eyes, but it was burning just a bit more brightly, now. "Your turn before you can guess again. What's S.H.I.E.L.D?"

That didn't really narrow it down, but not even knowing what S.H.I.E.L.D. was definitely changed the landscape, discarding plenty of possibilities for Tony as he realized, "Oh. You don't have any superheroes, either." That there could have been three different Earths that managed to survive the second World War alone without the Invaders seemed vanishingly likely to Tony, so maybe the Agrii were pulling multiple people from wherever Jon, Kyle and Clarice were coming from like they were with the Force people.

Before Clarice had to get too caught up in the hero thing, Tony shook his head to dismiss it, don't worry about it, and explained, "International spy agency. Strategic Hazard Intervention, Espionage and Logistics Directorate," very primly to hit every consonant, then took a gasping breath for the effort, rolling his eyes. "FBI," he landed on with confidence.

Superheroes was a word she'd heard from a few other people in the last few days, so it didn't surprise her to hear it from anyone else. His dismissal of it may have surprised her slightly, though. Once he'd spit out his mouthful, and given her a slight idea that this unfamiliar spy agency may have dealt specifically with those superheroes she wasn't to worry about, she winked at him.

"Yeah," she said with relish. "Not hard once you've guessed near everything else, though, is it, Tony? How long've you been involved with S.H.I.E.L.D?"

If he had to ask how she knew, he hadn't been minding himself - or estimating her perception - nearly well enough. The fact alone that he knew of such an agency by name or could guess that she had enough clout to belong to it said he knew more than the average citizen. And he said that name with something almost approaching respect, with the exception of that eyeroll. Which made her wonder if he held it in the same dubious, possibly fallen-from-grace regard that she did the Bureau, given her own treatment of her reply.

"Hey, you could have been military, there's a whole..." Tony tried to defend himself in that very challenging guessing game, hand spread to sweep across the myriad of acronyms available to him once he started delving into that well and to distract from the very immediate evidence that Clarice did not compose herself like a soldier. Tony was sure that kind of thing would have made this conversation much more difficult.

Okay, he had really narrowed down the field, and he surrendered to the accusation with his defending hand dropped limply into his lap and a wry smile. It remained as he raised his eyebrows and insisted, "You wound me," for this spurious accusation of S.H.I.E.L.D. involvement. "I try to keep to the fringes, not my scene, but..." Now that he had to think about it that way, how long he had been in this dance, he realized with some surprise, "My whole life. Kind of a family business. They pay better now than they did when I was five, that's a bonus. You didn't tell me why you stopped. "

At that first remark, she gave him a smile that said the 'uh HUNH' which would have cut him deeper with aloud. When he said she'd wounded him, she let herself be charmed, and the smile turned less teasing, more warm.

When he was five, though? Her eyes widened a little in surprise. S.H.I.E.L.D at five. Jedi at infancy. She was wondering if out there in the wide existence there was some agency that recruited people from the womb.

Then it was her turn, the invisible baton passed, and she paused, gracefully steeling herself to share something just as personal. "It wasn't my choice. Not at first. I was tracking a fugitive. One of their victims - the horrible man I mentioned earlier, in fact - wanted them for his own personal, gruesome idea of revenge. So he started pulling a lot of political purse-strings and had me framed as the fugitive's collaborator. Placed a false classified ad that had me tipping him off with details his friends on the inside got from my personal files. They called for my resignation and I gave it to them. I wish I'd told them where to stick my badge, in retrospect."

The opera below was breaking for intermission, the lights rising on the floor.

"Shall we refill our drinks? My treat this time."

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