Logs:Boundary Setters

Boundary Setters
Dramatis Personae Jax, Kitty
In Absentia Jax, Leo, Lucien, Steve	2023-02-09 Community ain't just for making sure you got soup when you're sick and doin' terrorism against the government it's also for terrible-parent-support.
Location <NYC> Rooftop - SHIELD HQ - Times Square
There's an unexpected oasis at the top of this gleaming high-rise, the whole of it carpeted in thick, soft, layered ground cover of sedums, grass, and moss. A small, carefully manucured grove serves as the centerpiece, with benches, tables and chairs scattered around in the shade. Beside it a professionally landscaped garden boasts a pond and quite a few planters that either used to hold plants or still hold dying ones. The greenhouse is somewhat sparsely and eclectically populated with tropical plants, flanked by garden beds even more sparsely planted. An open lawn on the side overlooking Times Square makes a great spot for a picnic, a little promontory formed by building turf up around three sides of the roof access, toolshed, and single stall bathroom offering a breathtaking view of the city. Up here, the seasonal chill of the whole city can truly be felt, absent the ambient heat of concrete and exhaust and people of the city. Heat lamps are deployed strategically across the rooftop near the various seating areas. The clouds have yet to actually downpour like they have been threatening this week, but their blanket cover of the sky continues to make this early February chill feel just a little bit more miserable. Kitty seems to only be feeling the cold in her cheeks, judging from how flushed pink they are. She's bundled in a red hooded peacoat and bleached, flannel-lined jeans, the interior red and black exposed where she's cuffed the bottom of the legs above the top of chestnut laced boots. Her cream-colored scarf is bundled on the table, juuuust offside the bounty of takeout Kitty has brought up for them both -- fried chick'n, garlic kale, sweet potatoes, and mac'n'cheez in copious amounts for leftovers. Her own plate is still being worked on, fork more often being used to emphasis a point than to get more kale into her mouth. "...Like, don't get me wrong, that punch was hilarious, but how did they let something leak twice?" Kitty looks askance at the SHIELD agent supposedly supervising this excursion. Lowers her voice: "Do you have a guess. I can wreck their phone on the way out. They'll never know." Jax is in a similar amount of bundling, cosy in a heavy rainbow colorblocked carpet coat over chunky sweater in purple-green-blue jewel-toned ombre, black skinny jeans laced corset-like up the outseams, rainbow fleece leggings beneath visible through the ribbon. He has been eating, considerably smaller of a portion and considerably more slowly than might be his habit in warmer months, but with a good deal of evident relish all the same. "Either someone really got it out for me or someone really got it out for Nick Fury," he answers with a small wrinkle of his nose, "because gosh this don't play good on camera." He presses his palm to his lips at her offer, stifling the laugh that wells up, and quite habitually he flicks a small glance to the nearest security camera -- for some reason broken and cracked and currently nonfunctional. "This little British guy, Mark, he's the worst. But oh! I don't want you making no more trouble for yourself, you -- don't hardly seem like more trouble is what your life needs right now." Kitty looks at the security camera, too, nose scrunching just a liiiittle extra amused at the fractures across the lens. "Come on, Mark," she says, the derision on the name so thick it loops back to comedy, "leak Fury kissing someone next time, leave my friend and favorite --" Kitty pauses just a moment, calculating, then corrects herself, "one of my favorite terrorists alone!" She giggles, briefly, before her mood begins to sober. "Whatever trouble SHIELD could make for me today, still would be better than last week's nonsense. I bet it would be fun, even." "I love that that's gotta have a qualifier for you. 'least I'm in real good company," Jax replies cheerfully. "An' gosh but it's hard to imagine Fury kissing anyone. He'd have to manage to get his mouth out that scowl for a couple seconds at least an' that might kill him." He dips one of the drummies into some buffalo sauce, but doesn't yet take a bite. Instead he leans forward, voice lower and his brows creased with concern. "Is he -- gonna be staying? In the city?" "Yeah, you are," Kitty says, just a touch dreamily, glancing down to her wrist where a jade bangle is neatly hidden by the sleeve of her coat. "It isn't that hard to imagine, you just got to picture another Equally Uptight black ops sort of person. Probably they flirt by scowling." She manages to get the piece of kale she's been waving around into her mouth before slumping forward. "He's got a job and an apartment and season tickets to the New York City Ballet. Like a real apartment not a long term AirBnB. There's a lease." Perhaps for other people this would be a list of accomplishments, but Kitty sounds despondent about these developments. "At least the first two are in Queens." Jax's clothes all fade to black, his hair and makeup shifting into greyscale as well as he affixes a determined scowl to his face. When color snaps abruptly back over him a moment later, he shakes his head. "I shouldn't yuck other people's yum but, like, scowly international cops? Someone out there could definitely do better." Though his color has returned, his scowl -- a little exaggerated at the moment in a fierce sympathy -- lingers a second longer. "Oh gosh but that sound serious. You should let him know you know some of the country's top terrorists an' if he messes with you --" But this threat falters on his lips, shifting to a more serious: "D'you think he's gonna mess with you?" “No,” Kitty says, hushed and anxious, overlapping the end of the question too soon to be an answer to it. “Good God, no, he’d find some extra grief to visit on you, too— if he knew about me and Leo he would probably send ICE straight to my place for the reward money —“ Kitty presses her palms and forearms flat against the table to steady herself. “He’s my dad, I want so badly to think he’s actually changed this time.” Unspoken, the many many times this assumption has been proven wrong. Her eyes lift to the shattered surveillance camera again, to their distant chaperone. “Then he shows up again, wanting to be my dad again, working for Lucien of all people? If he’s trying to mess with my head, it’s working already.” Jax sets down his fake chicken wing still untouched, dusting off his fingers and reaching out to set his hand over Kitty's and squeeze gently. "Maybe he done and maybe he ain't, but even if he is trying to turn over a new leaf -- you don't owe him no forgiveness, Kitty, or a place in your life neither. I just want you to know that real clear, yeah? An' if you do want to give him a chance --" His shoulder lifts in a small shrug. "You ain't a little kid no more, he don't got the same -- you got so many people around who'd be all too glad to help enforce whatever boundaries you think is right to set for him." Kitty's power is sensible to Jax when she turns her left hand over, a faint chill in his bones when ghostly fingers pass briefly through his, before settling solid and palm up to squeeze back. "One day, I hope I'll be able to manage boundaries in general on my own." She doesn't sound annoyed in any way at the reminder, the implicit thank you conveyed in the very small smile forming on her lips. "I still want to ask Lucien to just send him packing, but..." Her free hand reaches over to join the others, settling on her wrist to run her thumb over the jade. "Nu, you've known him longer -- how does he like his apologies? Gift basket? I feel like I owe him a warning about Dad's --" her expression sours, "-- whole resume." "Setting your own boundaries is great, and also independence is a capitalist myth," comes Jax's firm opinion. "Community ain't just for making sure you got soup when you're sick and doin' terrorism against the government it's also for terrible-parent-support." His other hand reaches now to pick his food back up, nibbling slowly at the chicken. "If I know Luci good he's like to already be schemin' how to make sure this Terrible Dad Situation don't escalate itself none in your life. But he..." He's hesitant, now, brow scrunching deep in thought. "I -- get the feeling Luci might be so startled by someone apologizin' to him that the form factor don't much matter. But I expect he'd be real tickled if you -- I don't suppose you got a calling card? Maybe a real fancy note on a real fancy paper." Kitty squeezes at Jax's hand again, the smile widening across her face. "Scheming or no, I think I owe him a couple apologies anyway, beyond just for losing it at his grand opening -- oh, Jax, the pictures online don't do it justice the hotel is gorgeous -- and I kind of accidentally stole his handkerchief anyway, so -- I got a bunch of business cards for conferences, that's kind of a calling card, right?" Kitty seems doubtful. "I just -- I want this all sorted between me and him by the time you come home so we can all just pile on the couch and make Steve suffer through... The Bee Movie, oh! or Con Air." Despite the terrible movies she's naming, Kitty sounds hopeful and eager. "Kind of," Jax agrees on the subject of Cards with a similar dubiousness that is soon enough washed away in the wake of a warmer anticipation. "Oh my gosh how do you even explain the Bee Movie to someone -- we just gonna have to have cameras at the ready." If the edge of his smile is just a little strained, his tone just a little too-bright, well. He's very determinedly not-looking towards his current minder, very determinedly not-wavering in his hopeful: "When I get home."