ArchivedLogs:Olive Branch

Olive Branch
Dramatis Personae Clint, Fury, Jax
In Absentia	2016-05-09 "What's it to you which dark hole we're sitting in?"
Location Laquin Penitentiary - Interview Room
The room is gray and spare, with no windows save a small rectangular porthole in its single reinforced steel door. The single steel table and the four hard steel chairs around it are all bolted to the floor. The smooth concrete of the walls seem to radiate cold, and the fluorescent lights embedded in the ceiling shed only wan, sickly white glow. It's not exactly silent in here. A faint buzzing hum from the lights, a tromp of booted footsteps somewhere out in the hall. A rapid jittery drum of fingertips against the steel tabletop. The backdrop of meaningless white noise really only serves to highlight the overall quiet of the sparsely populated prison wing, though. In this room, right now, Jax is alone. Thinner and paler and far less colourful than he usually looks on television, he's lost a fair bit of weight in the past six weeks, hair plain and straight and dark, face devoid of its usual heavy stippling of metal, the bright orange of his jumpsuit lending his pallor a sicklier tinge. The taptaptap of his (very short and oddly neatly-trimmed in contrast to his current dark scruff of beard) nails on the tabletop is quick. Restless. One set of footfalls approach the door and stop outside for a moment. The visitors, when they come in, come unaccompanied, their escorts remaining outside. The first to enter is a nondescript white man with short brown hair and keen brown eyes. Clint wears a black dress shirt with purple pinstripes and a deep purple satin vest, and trousers that match the shirt. He scans the room quickly as he enters and then parks himself beside the door, arms crossed over his chest. Following close behind is a tall, solidly-built black man in a long black leather coat, a black stand-collar shirt, black leather gloves, black cargo pants, and black combat boots. His head is cleanly shaven, his mustache and goatee impeccably trimmed, and his face much lined with both wrinkles and scars. The most obvious of these last are three jagged parallel claw marks that cross his eyebrow and disappear beneath the black leather patch that covers his left eye. He comes to a stop beside the chair and looks down at Jax. His hands remain clasped behind his back and his face is fixed in a vaguely disapproving almost-frown. "Jackson Holland." His voice is deep, commanding. "I am Colonel Nick Fury, of the Strategic Scientific Reserve. This is not an interrogation. We are not being recorded. You're not required to speak to me at all, and if you'd prefer to talk with your lawyer or lawyers present, that can be arranged." He pauses, tugging his gloves off one finger at a time. His eye never leaves Jax's face, never even seems to blink. "But I'd prefer to just talk to you myself, first." Jackson sits up straight when the door opens, his hand stilling, fingertips pressing flat against the table. The tip of his tongue presses to one corner of his lip, touching to -- nothing, now. There's a very slight lift of his chin that lowers a moment later, a quick smile tugging at his mouth. "That vest," he says lightly, thick drawl coating his words, "is /so/ excellent. I should tell the stylists here t'talk to /you/, they really ain't doing nothing for me." He quiets again, though, hand pressing down flat on the table when Nick speaks. "SSR?" There's another small twitch of his lips -- not a smile, this time. "You work with Steve, then." /He/ does blink, curling his fist slowly and then opening his hand against the table again. "If this ain't an interrogation what's it you want to talk to me about?" Clint looks perhaps just a little surprised to be addressed at all. He stares at Jax very intently while he speaks. Then, one corner of his mouth tugs in a kind of sardonic smile. "You should see some of my other costumes." Fury inclines his head, only half a nod. All the same, he seems to have decided Jax's reply is close enough to an invitation, and sits down across from him. "/I/ just pay Cap to have a conscience and be a pain in my ass. Agent Barton," and here he tips his head in Clint's direction, "actually works with him." He finishes shucking his gloves and sets them both aside, bracing his elbows on the table and steepling his fingers. The effect is somehow less sinister than one might expect, considering his expression has not lost its suggestion of vague disapproval. "The Bureau of Prisons has not afforded you or Ryan Black certain Constitutionally-guaranteed rights during your incarceration. I'm certain we can do better, but I'm not certain you want anything to do with us. So." His hands spread out. "I'm asking." "And what's it you do with him then -- Agent?" Jax's eye has flicked back to Clint, here, his brows lifting curiously. He presses his lips together, his other hand lifting to scrub his fingers through his hair. "I don't think the government's historically been real concerned with the rights of alleged terrorists, sir. You'll -- hafta forgive me, my brain's been a little fuzzy these days. What -- exactly are you askin' me?" Clint's shrug is only a small tick of shoulders. "Train, mostly. Run scenarios--basically it's really fancy LARPing." He pauses for a moment, considering. "Sometimes," he adds gravely, "we watch 'Leverage' together in the break room and talk about dogs." "I wouldn't be too concerned about your rights, either, if I were actively trying to stop you from terrorizing anyone." Fury folds his hands back together again. "But I'm not, and this?" One hand gestures at the room. "Don't help anyone from where I'm standing. My organization has been charged with providing effective oversight of criminal activity by enhanced people. I'd rather do that by working with you than against you." He pauses again, sighs as if he's reluctant to continue, but continue he does. "I can try to have you and Black transferred to one of our facilities. We ain't the Ritz, but you'd be given access to health care and /carefully regulated/ visitation." Clint's answer puts a quick smile back on Jax's face -- a little wistful, for a moment. Fury's takes it back off, though. "You're not?" He sounds -- just a little skeptical, though the mention of visitation puts a visible twitch in his posture, a tiny but audible hitch in his breath. He looks back down at the table briefly before meeting Fury's gaze again. "From what I'd gathered, government's been rarin' to pitch us away into a dark hole for a good long while now. What's it to you which dark hole we're sitting in?" "Among other things," Clint puts in casually, "it would be kind of embarrassing if one of our own contractors were to break into /yet another/ Federal prison facility to free you. It's in our interest to keep Cap from ending up in a dark hole--or on the run for life." Then, rather mildly, "This proposition is much easier than persuading him to change his mind." Fury does not seem in the bothered by his subordinate speaking out of turn, or even, really, answering /for/ him. "'Among other things' being a key phrase there," he says, lacing his fingers together. "No, I'm not, because-- Look, we probably don't see eye-to-eye on most things, but I think that what you and your team did was necessary. My organization's mission is not to defend this or /any/ state, but to defend the world against existential threats from powered individuals. I do not think we can succeed in that mission without establishing a working relationship with the mutant community. So, consider this an olive branch. And, believe what you will, but..." His mouth twists to one side--it isn't quite a smirk, though there's /some/ humor buried deep in there. "...I /am/ concerned about the rights of criminals, terrorist or otherwise. I can't overhaul the Bureau of Prisons, but I hope I can make the point that the way they handling things /here/ is unnecessary. Probably counterproductive. Certainly cruel and unusual." A deep flush of red darkens Jax's cheeks at Clint's answer, his eye widening -- /just/ a touch, and his gaze dropping to study his fingernails. "Wish I could say I been a bad influence but that'd be downright arrogant, he's been headstrong since long 'fore any of us was born." The small smile that flits across his face is gone by the time he looks back up, studying Fury's face with a small furrow of his brow. There's a long silence, then a very small twitch of his lips. "Working relationship. But your organization, though, they didn't seem real concerned with none of my community's rights while the government was holding /innocents/ in lockup for ages after Prometheus." His voice is quiet, here; polite, still, if cautious. "So y'all step in now..." He trails off here, brow creasing deeper in thought. Clint's eyes fix on Jax harder when he looks down. He leans forward, settles his weight a little lower on the wall. It's a moment before he replies, "That maybe so, but you /have/ had an...influence on him." The words might have sounded suggestive coming from someone else, but Clint delivers them in near-monotone, as though he were just making a casual, perfunctory remark about the weather. Fury nods ever so slightly, as if to himself, when Jax trails off. It looks like it might be an unconscious gesture, a tell, even. He rolls his eye at Clint's comment, but only says, without further qualification, "A good one, I think." He leans back in his chair now, folding one arm across his chest and propping the other on it to stroke his beard. "I absolutely do want to come out of this in a better position than we entered, but I hold no illusions that your people will--or should--/like/ us. But since you've been willing to entertain me this far, I should explain something you might already know: we're not Army, or DoD, or any branch of the US government. We're a UN-backed NGO that absorbed SSR, and our ability to twist Uncle Sam's arm has thus far been pretty much limited to networking and harsh language." He pauses, something not quite a frown wrinkling the corner of his eye. "It is the greatest regret of my life that I didn't find out in time--about the detainees who /didn't/ get sent to Wabaunsee. I spent two years banging my head against that wall, but we never even knew where the survivors were held until we found out from /your/ hackers. Which doesn't speak well for our competence, I suppose, but." Sitting up a little straighter now, he inclines his head forward. "Now that the Feds have well and truly fucked this up, we're going to come out of it with more power than we did going in. You--not just you personally, but your people--have a chance to monitor and influence how we wield that power going forward. Don't write that off." The colour burns just a touch darker in Jax's face at Clint's words, suggestive or no. He closes his eye when Fury mentions the detainees who did not make it to Kansas, pulling in a slow breath. When his eye opens again, it tips up to study the ceiling. "An' I could see my kids?" Despite himself, there's a very faint quaver in his voice. He swallows, hard. "Y'all run this by Ryan yet? I imagine he mighta had some harsh language for you his own self. They ain't -- let me talk t'him since we got here, though." Clint lifts his fist to his heart and traces a small, quick circle there. "It wasn't my intention to embarrass you," he says this somewhat more quietly than before, a distinct midwestern accent coloring his speech. "There's plenty that speaks ill of our competence, but I like to think we learn from our mistakes reasonably well." "I should hope so." Fury's expression remains schooled, neutral. "You'd be able to see anyone on your visitation list, have access to limited telecommunications, and you may share facilities with Ryan Black, if you both so desire. We're going to speak to him shortly--we requested to see you together, but they wouldn't have it. I'd offer to convey a message to him, but I suspect you'd both feel more at ease letting Ms. Hua pass your notes." He rises, studying Jax closely for a moment. "I appreciate that you have little cause to trust men in positions of power, but I'm willing to earn it. Gotta start somewhere." He picks up his gloves with his right and and extends his left to shake. Jax's palm rubs slowly down against the side of his face, a quiet rasp of sound as he brushes against his scruff of beard. "No, it's -- I jus' -- he --" Cheeks still darkened, he looks a little flustered, here, shaking his head and ultimately not -- really finishing a coherent thought. Just glancing at Clint and then away. He nods, rising as well -- noticeably unsteadily -- and meeting Fury's left hand with his own. "I guess we'll be in touch, then, sir."