Summary:Mystique lies her butt off! Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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To be honest, Mystique was having second thoughts about this entire deal. Which was annoying, to say the least. After all, she is the one that approached SHIELD. She is the one giving them targets to eliminate, a list of criminals that they may not have even had on their radar or were seemingly out of reach as they were so careful. By giving them to SHIELD on a platter, she was also getting what she wanted out of the deal. Eliminating enemies or those simply in her way. There were a few who had actually managed to get her blamed for their crimes.
Not that everything she was wanted for was a trumped up charge. No, she had plenty of blood on her hands. It simply irritated her that she would get blamed for the things she did not do. Pride. Even among what many considered a monster.
At least they didn't keep her in a cell at this point. She was sitting in a conference room, reading through a file on a computer screen. They knew she was there. They always knew where she was. For now.
She was looking positively normal though, if one were a human. Black hair, brown eyes. The face of Raven Darkholme when she was with DARPA. She could be in her normal form but this one amused her since it was a bit of a snub in their faces that she once worked for the government herself, in a position of power.
When the whole thing went down, Clint Barton had been there. He heard the alarms, responded quickly, the situation was mostly handled. But her. This Mystique. She was a loose end, and a question mark. She had a rap sheet as long as the archer's arm and was known for things ranging from international acts of terrorism to murder to… child endangerment. Crazy.
But, to be fair, her file read like a penny dreadful, and to be fair… it was interesting.
So when the man in the jeans, sneakers, black t-shirt and grey flannel overshirt decided to wander on down to the current place where they had her under observation… he decided to take it with him. If only to use it as a prop for him to hold as he leans there in the doorway beside her guards. He's holding that manila folder, looking terribly pleased with himself as he says he name.
"Mallory Brickman. Fine. Millicent Hardwick. Okay. Ronnie Lake. Cute."
He stops reading off some of her aliases and then looks up at her, eyes lidded and narrowed with incredulity. "Raven. Darkholme." He lets those words hang there.
Then he finally, after a few seconds says. "Even to me that name sounds…Made Up."
As the archer enters, Raven lifts her gaze from the computer screen to see who they had sent now to question her. Most had been high ranking and particularly sour. Then there had been the two attempts to send in mutants they had on the payroll. Maybe they thought she would feel a kindred spirit with them. She had laughed in their faces. They were as far from being like her as this human leaning against the door making fun of her name.
"Brickman wasn't my choice. I married into that one," she says with a tight smile, amusement obvious in her expression. "I like Millicent. It's an old fashioned name. Ronnie Lake? Admittedly, that one struck me as the heroine in a cheap Harlequin romance novel and I had to use it."
She leans back in the executive style, leather chair, pushing off a little with her feet to have the rollers take her about a foot from the table. "As for Raven, I have to blame my mother for that. Perhaps she was a Poe fan. Or maybe she worshipped the Norse gods and thought to go for symbolism. Or even better yet, maybe it is a made up name. So difficult to tell, isn't it?"
For all the style points he's going for with the folder and looking overly casual and standing there all judgmental, he pushes off the doorjam and starts to walk across the room. He tucks the folder under his arm, and looks down at her in the rather lush chair, one eyebrow quirking as he takes her measure from this close of a range.
Before he had mainly just taken aim at her and kept his distance, now he's looking at her up close and perhaps forcing himself to realize he's not seeing anything like her herself.
Then, even as she explains the details of her other aliases, and then moves on to the possibilities that lead whomever to Raven Darkholme, he just looks her straight in the eye and says,
"Your name is dumb."
And there, he leans over and grabs one of the other chairs and pulls it over, the coasters creaking and squealing as it does so. Then he sits down in it, setting that folder beside himself as he folds his arms and looks across the way at her.
"Now that that's out of the way, I'm Agent Barton. Nobody told me to come down here and question you. I am here out of boredom." It's truthful day at the Barton Ranch.
The insult is met with another amused smile. It is rather apparent, she couldn't care less what he thinks of her name. Or anything else, for that matter.
Seating himself, she finds satisfaction that he got the squeaky chair. It's a little victory but a victory nonetheless. She picked one that was the best at the table, moving it from the head to the side where she was seated. He did seem to make himself at home though.
Then he opened his mouth again. "Really?" The word is drawn out, almost a drawl, as though she cannot believe that is his reasoning. "You come here with a file on me simply because you are bored? If you want to stare at the animals, Mr. Barton, you should go to a zoo. If you want to stare at people, I understand there are places you can pay for that pleasure."
"Or. Orrrrr." He holds up his hands as if asking her to bear with him, "I can do it here for free. But I mean, dunno where you go but people-watching is usually fairly inexpensive. The park, the shopping centers, the grocery store. Lots of places to observe the strange and the unusual."
"But, here…" He looks back towards the guarded doorway and the cameras around, the monitors. "I sort of have a captive audience. And the chance for you to tell me your story in its own words if only so I can act all shocked and chagrined during your inevitable recant and betrayal."
It's then that he settles back in the chair, crossing a leg over his knee and resting his hands on the arms of his seat. He looks at her, expectantly, awaiting her to explain herself. Yet again.
That earns a slight roll of the eyes from Mystique. "So instead, you are one of those creepy people at the park women are afraid are after their children. Lovely." She turns away from her computer again, squaring off to face him. Her legs are tucked a bit beneath the chair, at an angle, ankles crossed demurely. She places her hands on the arms of the chair, long fingers dangling at the front of the armrests.
"Mr. Barton," she begins. Not Agent Barton. That would be giving him power. "I am certain your file has told you all there is to know about me."
A moment later and that ripple effect happens. Starting from right side of her body and following to the left, leaving her normal blue form for him to see. She's dressed in the same outfit she had upon her surrender to SHIELD in the lobby, the leather pants and short top with matching boots on her feet. "I am a mutant terrorist who likes nothing better than to kill humans for fun. I eat babies on my off time because their spirits feed my black soul." In this form, her eyes are impossible to read but there is amusement in her tone.
"There is nothing more to be said that you don't already know. What isn't in your file is mine to know and yours to wonder."
"Well, not everything." About her. Clint settles into the chair, leaning to the side and resting an elbow upon the arm of it. "Like where you come down on the whole Yankees versus Mets debacle. Or how you prefer your pizza. I know, I know, New Yorkers all should looove the whole thin crust fold it up, eat it up method. But I think there's room for variance."
That said he crosses a boot over his knee and scritches a fingertip through his beard. "But also the whole thing like why you're here, what you're doing."
The archer looks over at the guards as if to check something about them, then looks back towards Mystique. "My first thought was you just wanted to get into the depths of things, and then expose some sort of contagion, or become some sort of contagion. Bio-weapon or the like."
He takes a deep breath and sighs, "But they say you're clean. I mean, I sort of did advocate for them to just sedate you and then dissect you to find out what you might be hiding. But…"
He lifts his eyes up and shakes his head a little, hands rising to fend himself off from imaginary attackers, "But we're the /good/ guys. So they said no."
"They would find precisely what you see. Oh, and the pen I tucked away to stab someone in the throat with later. Your people should really be more careful about that." A flick of the hand, which was really her opening her skin but on the side he couldn't see, and the pen was in her fingers. She placed it on the table by the computer she was using.
"I came here because of that information I shared about AIM. They are doing things that are going to kill lots of people. Not just humans. My kind as well. I am not going to sit by and allow that to happen. Unfortunately, that meant putting myself in bed with SHIELD." She makes a face that shows a high level of disgust. "Much more interesting places to be in bed, I have to tell you. Since being one of theirs, I doubt you know. So vanilla."
She waved a hand at the room though she was indicating the building at large. "Is it too much to believe I'm here to help? With a healthy side of wanting to be in on the takedown since I am the one that can get you inside."
Taking a deep breath, Clint shakes his head and looks away, making a face that seems to be all sorts of unhappy. As if he had been given a wheel barrow full of shit and expected to find someone to buy it as wallpaper. His fingertips tap lightly on the arm of the chair, just a short staccato rhythm as if he were pondering the situation. Then he looks back at her.
"Alright, Ray." He's never going to call her Raven. Too edgy. "We can start by sharing secrets. How's about that?"
He touches fingertips to the center of his chest, "Now here's one about me. People call me the only Avenger without powers. I mean big deal, I shoot arrows at people until I run out and then I call timeout and go home."
For a moment he looks around, conspiratorially. Then leans forward. "But see, my mutant power…" He says, "Is that I can perceive the future."
He nods solemnly as if giving her such powerful insight into him. "And what I see right now, about all of this?" He gestures around with one hand, as if indicating her, the Triskelion, the world. "Is that this, ends in tears."
As he tells his tale, that slight smirk remains as her expression. Until he reaches the part where he decides to make a confession. She knew he was the archer from the Avengers. However, there wasn't much more she had learned. Silly SHIELD and hiding information about its people to an extent even she hadn't been able to learn details.
It was very frustrating for someone like her. So as he leaned in, she found herself doing the same. Unfolding her ankles, shifting her feet forward for balance and leaning her upper body his direction to hear his admission of being a mutant.
Her eyes widened slightly. As he gave his precognitive vision, she tilted her head to the side.
Then she leaned closer still, giving a little wave of her hand as though she wants to talk to him without the cameras picking it up. When she manages to get as close as he'll allow, she whispers, "I didn't realize you were so sensitive. Perhaps I should get you a tissue?"
Followed by her leaning back and laughing softly. "Now let me share a secret, Mr. Barton. Everything ends in tears. That is the nature of life. It is a lesson I learned long before you were born."
"See, I could tell when I came in here we'd end in agreement." Clint's smile is open and entirely phony as he looks across the way at Raven Darkholme /if/ that is her real name. "In any case," Agent Barton rests his hands on the arms of the chair as he starts to push himself up to his feet.
"Training begins at 05:00 in the morning, if you're going to be trotting around like a good SHIELD agent you should at least somewhat look the part and know how to pass yourself off as one." He waggles his fingers in her direction as he stands there, "I know, I know. You've probably impersonated at least one in your lifetime. But hey, here now I get to teach you the secret handshake and all the secret trivia like how Director Fury lost his eye."
That said he starts to walk back toward the doorway.
"Look the part? That's amusing," Mystique says as she immediately morphs into the form of one of the agents who had stood on her down in the lobby. Then she shifts into Clint himself as he walks to the doorway. He might not be looking but when he hears a voice, it is his own.
"I look forward to you furthering my education. As for Fury's eye?" Suddenly it is Nick Fury's voice and his form in that chair. "I was there. Good afternoon, Mr. Barton."
Thens he is back to her Raven Darkholme human form, turning back to the computer.