dear_mun | on mun's renewed inspiration

You make everyone uncomfortable, ma'am. [Says the fellow with the SHIELD villain face.] That doesn't mean no one would miss you.

Besides, what's wrong with a little nostalgia?

I feel absolutely certain that you intended two compliments there, not one compliment and one insult.

What's wrong is that all this is for its own sake. No plans going forward. [She's not used to that.

His lookalike was terrible to Sierra's. She won't bring it up if he doesn't. They have a prayer of a chance at a pleasant reunion.]

Maybe I'm getting soft in retirement. [There's one of his blank smiles, the one he uses when he's outwardly hiding a smirk. Certainly, retirement is one thing. The city, too, changed a lot in him while he'd been there. But that was some time ago. Moved on. Tried to. But here they are in the end.] I trust the same hasn't gone for you.

On the other hand, no contingency plans for coming out? Maybe you just need some tea with those agents. Could be you'd find a place among them. Not out in the field, of course.

You'd find a place among them, Mr Dominic, with a great deal more ease. A spy among spies. I doubt whether I'd be a good fit for a discredited intelligence agency. [So she says, but they can't pretend she's never how high-ed to someone's orders to jump.] My place is in the private sector, or what continues to pass for it.

[Buying expensive shoes while she can, even though the other side of her has seen and lived through what's to come.]

Besides, I still seem to be making offers.

I was just about to ask how you've been. Now I wonder whether retired isn't a sufficient answer. [Retired is more of an answer than she likely deserves, considering it's a personal question.]

For every Agent May, there's a Nicholas Fury, and while I'm not about to compare the House to a global threat assessment organization, you did have to run a house full of potential crazies and ninjas, balancing science gone wrong with an urge to do some good. So I doubt a discredited intelligence agency is worse than a discredited morally bankrupt company that initiates the apocalypse.

[As for a spy among spies, the real kicker is who would rather have him on their side, Shield or Hydra? Given his history, he could always pull a Bobbi Morse. And Shield does have a habit of taking in misfit toys. Hell, Topher could be their shiny new codemonkey, and Echo their new kickass agent with a spotty history.]

So let's just say it's been a while since I've really stretched my legs beyond the extremely infrequent poking my head out to quip at someone. And even then... [It's just been a while.]

You know you can ask whatever you want. So long as we understand that I haven't been under any obligation to give you a reply, or an honest one, in a damn long time, ma'am. [But he'll still call her ma'am. Whether that's reflex, respect, irony, or sarcasm is up to her to deduce.]

You make me sound very capable. [Her eyebrows raise at precisely the same time her mouth curves into a quick smile. It's the pleasant surprise reaction she reserves for something that isn't truly a surprise.] More credit to your observation skills.

I never said that it would be worse than the House. You might be satisfied to learn that I call nothing worse, at this stage.

[They should be past barbs about her naivety and his 'I told you so,' but if he has the itch, she'll tolerate it once for old times' sake.]

Leaving aside questionable hair and sexual orientation, I could replace Victoria Hand in a style SHIELD wouldn't soon forget.

[Never call her unwilling to indulge other people's ideas. Never say she doesn't abide his suggestions in particular. It's still her decision and hers alone.

Laurence Dominic would be a superb undercover agent for either side. Who could be more prepared for the heavy consequences of being found out? She's morbidly fascinated to know whether anyone could do worse than she did. It isn't a kind thought. Happily, it also isn't around for long.]

No need for reminders. I understand perfectly that we owe each other nothing.

[He says ma'am, and the formality is both foreign and familiar. Does he know? When she left off, some of the former Actives were venturing the occasional Addie and she was lapsing into darling here and there, not only with Topher. She does try to decide how he means it, briefly, but it could be more than one of the listed possibilities. She doesn't need to know. He might not know, himself. She hopes not. The things people do with no understanding of why they do them, those are her favorites.]

[The 'told you so's are left where they should be, in the past. It's a conversation they've had how many times before, when it still mattered, when it was still that fresh. The jabs, the pains between them might always exist. Difficult, he knows, to forgive someone who deceived them for so many years. And just as difficult for him to forgive the woman who sent him to a fate far worse than death more than once.

Neither are clean or perfect or selfless. They are bitter and sarcastic beings, with agendas, with grudges, with the play they act around each other. Sometimes he throws the script away for the sake of indulging his anger, or for the sake of trying to surprise her, or even because he's tired of the old routine.

Maybe if he turned into a wolf, she'd at least briefly look startled, for a change of pace.]

What, you didn't dig the hair? I think I can appreciate the stripes. Gave her a little flair to ease the stern look. I'm not saying you need that. You can look soft if you try.

[Hydra would appreciate their capacity for cruelty, and Shield their skills in leadership, decisionmaking, spying and lying. The ability to do some good, however morally bankrupt the methods. She leads. He keeps people safe. What a team on their own. Maybe he's allowing nostalgia to get to him.]

Do you ever miss the idea of being sent somewhere where the slate is clean, or at least partially washed off, and you can start again?

[Certainly, he could startle her. It isn't outside the realm of possibility that he could give her a heart attack. At one time, she did have her share of exposure to the supernatural and the otherworldly, she just doesn't expect that from him. They've both changed immensely, and while she's aware of that, she doesn't think he's undergone a transformation. What she feels is the old sense of coordination and synchronicity. Boyd simply wasn't in step with her, for reasons now grotesquely obvious.

Dominic was never the voice of her conscience, as he ought to know, but at least it wasn't unhinged curiosity that motivated him to watch her. He didn't just want to know whether she could drag herself back from the abyss. She values that with the clarity of hindsight.

Neither of them play by the rules. They'd both cheat in order to win, but when Adelle steps outside the bounds, she does it as quietly as her illegal move allows. A bloody wolf would be like overturning the board, or tearing up the cards. She'd resent it. She'd probably resent him ascending or descending to any playing field she couldn't meet him on.

Assuming the shock didn't kill her, the game they'd be left with would involve her borrowing a tennis ball from Topher.]

I think I'd find an unnatural colour sartorially limiting. Thank you for your opinion, Mr Dominic. [She closes her eyes a moment and presses her lips into a severe line, to thoroughly not appreciate it.] Of course I can look soft if I try. I can be soft without trying.

[Is it so hard to believe that she might have other modes? Regardless, it matters fantastically little, and she moves on without sighing. Starting again is what she condemned herself to. She's been judge, jury and executioner for people other than him.

That isn't his meaning and she knows it.]

I'll allow that the idea still has an appeal. It appeals when taken alone, hopeful and fresh and without the tarnish of the necessary compromises and physical demands of making it happen. You and I have a somewhat unique perspective on what a clean slate means. If a clean slate is atonement, then I've come to understand that it's best achieved with full knowledge of everything that came before.

[Her answer sounds a little incomplete. She deflects.]

And yourself? Do you have the stamina to start again?

[He has stories, stories that sound impossible and fantastic and horrifying. The lycanthropy was one of the better things to happen to him, actually. But he's not interested in digging his own grave on the things that have happened before, in the past. Despite any rereading and all night nostalgia the typist may have been engaged in.

Her softness has never been up for debate. Like May, (or May like Adelle) she has her professional mask to keep a standard. But suggesting that her default state she fights against might be softness sounds too presumptuous, too close. Too familiar. But they're allowed to be familiar. He's not her guard dog on a chain leash, after all.]

For what it's worth, I'm glad a clean slate in this case doesn't involve being wiped.

[That isn't worth very much, but it's worth something. He sees her deflection, frowns at it, but doesn't call her on it otherwise. That they're both aware is enough.] The thought is there. Let's be honest, in the end, it isn't up to me. I could start again, fresh, from a point where things went to hell. I could start full of memories I had of the city. I could start differently--as someone who wasn't a mole, as a Doll, as a handler. A lot of possibilities. It's being considered.

I could go. I could stay in the box. So long as I still exist--dying I have no problem with. Being forgotten wouldn't sit so well.

[It's awfully tempting to lock Dominic into a fistfight, just to be on the safe side. It is a pretty uncanny resemblance.

DeWitt's not being gracious in defeat, so the latest model is piecing two and two together.]

She's jealous, right?

[It's the lack of nerdy little 40's glasses, isn't it? That's gotta be the giveaway.]

That implies that you're the replacement to be jealous of. You could always try working together and terrify the entire world.

[She didn't trip on a corpse on her way over. That helped too.

There's someone at HYDRA with her face, too. One more and they can form a club.]

You think I want to be scary?

[What's scary is that she doesn't try.]

C'mon, NSA.

[Don't jinx it, or else Hydra will come out with a LMD of Coulson. Then we can really have a party.]

I think you don't try to convince anyone otherwise.

Lemmie guess, you feel trapped because you got roped back into something you never asked for with an appearance to maintain, and she feels trapped because she hates being pointlessly paraded around if it isn't gonna lead anywhere. Could be jealousy's not a one-way street. If I had to guess.

[She shrugs lopsidedly, easily conceding some truth there. If he'd swung and missed, didn't stand a chance of bruising her ego, she wouldn't be doing that. She wouldn't concede anything if he hadn't earned it. She doesn't do much to keep peace. She did goad him, a little; can't be too sore about getting what she asked for.]

Better.

[He wasn't dead on target. She doesn't feel a need to match appearances because she knows when she can't, when people want something unrealistic. Her legend never fit. It's more like she feels a need to maintain a standard, and not even that as begrudgingly as before. Still, DeWitt's probably gonna be in the wind while May gets sent to some shithole, that's where he's really got a point. The humor's an olive branch.]

I'm not jealous of that wardrobe.

[The question's less placating.] What was that just now? Old habit?

[It wasn't objectivity, facts presented as facts. In the physical fight May wouldn't have started with DeWitt, she can picture him stepping in to separate them, or to try. It wouldn't be for May's benefit.]

What, not a big fan of stylish-corporate? More for her, then. A uniform's easier.

[He hasn't worn anything like a uniform in years. But then again, maybe suits? Kind of like a uniform. If May's got a standard, then Dominic's got an appearance. So does DeWitt. They can go out the window when they don't matter anymore, in the Attic or when the apocalypse reigns supreme, but otherwise?

His chin lifts, head tilting.] Kinda like riding a bicycle, isn't it? [It's a non-answer, and he knows it. She knows it, too. May doesn't need the benefit of him stepping in for her; in a fight between the ladies, only one of them is the Cavalry.]

Hand wash only? Life's too short.

[He's right, a uniform's easier. Wear it for long enough and the impression of it starts sticking to casual clothes. DeWitt has a lot of classy shoes. May hates heels. Coulson could probably get a terrible Achilles pun out of that, if he wanted to. She's thinking Dominic wouldn't do anything with the information at all. Wouldn't want it, so he doesn't get it. He's probably expecting this economy with words.

Height difference meant she was already having to look up at him, anyway. She nods once to acknowledge, not confirm. A non-answer isn't worth an answer. He could say something else, or they could move off to different things. The next line won't be coming from her. They never betrayed anyone. Watching those backs is almost automatic, a reflex. Stick a fork in the parallel, it's done.]

Edited (but did you miss me and my nitpicky edits) 2014-12-04 08:28 (UTC)

[He'd like to say old habit, and sure, that's part of it. Easy to slide into like a well-worn suit or a pair of jeans that fit just right. Is that weakness, conformity? But that isn't all there is to it. He's hardly a stupid man, intellectually, but he's never been good at examining his own emotions, so that he can't really give a straight answer means she doesn't get one at all. He could lie, but even a lie would be telling.]

You've spent a lot of time looking after your boss. And your team. It takes a lot of effort to put up that front. [Her standard.] If you were given the chance at a vacation, would you even take it, or would you spend all that time working out and making sure you had eyes on them?

[And Ward is just going to stare. And feel a little sick.]

...Who the hell are you?

Not who you clearly think I am.

[He frowns]

...Of course not. All the same.

Bit of a surprise.

I'll bet. This is probably the point where it'd be easier if my personality was uploaded into a doll, but your luck is just bad enough to be dealing with me face to actual face.

[That's what the woman was talking about.] ...What makes you think I'd be afraid of you?

[He's not afraid of Whitehall.]

Didn't suggest you were afraid. [He just said it'd be easier. More comfortable. But hey, now that Ward's brought it up...] If we share faces, I can't imagine he looks any scarier, but I guess someone who's a Nazi of eternal youth must be at least a little frightening.

[Their last meeting went well but he's pretty sure that Whitehall probably wants him killed.

HE can't do that. Not until Skye gets what he promised her.]

Not scared.

I don't imagine much scares you. You can't let it, in your line of work.

on mun's renewed inspiration

WOW GOSH HELLO HI

oh my god! you astonish me. what a long time it's been.

blame ward-mun for my seeing this and falling all over it

blame, credit. credit, blame. :D

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have the other one. because hi. hi a lot.

so much hi (so much crossover shenanigan)

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THIS HAS TO HAPPEN

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