Logs:Flat-footed

Flat-footed
Dramatis Personae Fury, Jax, Steve
In Absentia Spencer	2023-02-07 "I'm sorry to interrupt, Mister Holland, but I have urgent need to speak with you."
Location <NYC> Detention Facility - Jax's Suite - SHIELD HQ - Times Square
A bit larger than the other detainee's rooms, this one has been converted from a small corner lounge for the guest rooms. Tall windows with a southern exposure let in copious sunlight if the unnecessarily high-tech curtains are drawn. The sitting area is small but comfortable and the sleeping area beyond it is screened off with interior partitions. There's a bulky desk in one corner with a computer rigged up nicely for video calls and a kitchenette tucked into another. A video comm panel by the front door allows for quick communication with both in-person visitors just outside the door or the security staff down the hall. The room decorations have been proliferating wildly -- the bed is now home to a menagerie of stuffed animals, mostly all Very New except for one old much-loved Cheer Bear perched atop the pillow. Greenery spills over from pots by the window ledge and hanging baskets. Art in numerous people's varied styles has been hung on the walls, with numerous of Jax's own sketches -- portraits of friends mingling with anthro characters and surreal cityscapes, a large drawing of a stained glass window bearing an image of Apollo done in traditional church-window style -- tacked up on the desk. A number of stained-glass hangings refract colorful light in from the expensive windows. Jax himself is not at the desk currently but at his easel, set up in one corner. Dressed in faded and much-paint-splattered overalls hanging off one shoulder over an ancient threadbare Rainbow Brite tee, plain dark hair and plain black eyepatch making his unusually pale skin look even more washed out, he's focused and intent as he works. The computer is playing music -- Tsibele's version of "Mir Veln Zey Iberlebn" -- filling the room with the defiant tune (on repeat, and has been for Quite Some Time). Jax is holding his palette loose in one hand, in his other his paintbrush is gripped more like a sword than a pen, whole hand curled around it as he adds color in broad sweeps to the canvas. So early on there is not much hint in the abstract shading of what the layers of oil paint will build up to, but every so often flickers of outline form on the canvas and then just as quickly fade -- a spreading of roots here, a branch there, something almost like a face over there. Across the room, Steve is sitting kind of crookedly on the bed, propped against the headboard, ankles crossed and dangling off the side, sketchbook cradled in the crook of his left arm. He's wearing a black t-shirt (at least one side too small) with the words "None of us are free until all of us are free" in bold white letters across the chest, comfortable straight-leg jeans, and well-worn black combat boots. The sketch taking shape beneath the quick strokes of his pencil depicts Sam looking fondly exasperated as he moves his laptop to make space for the huge pitbull climbing into his lap. Zenobia, for her part, looks very pleased with herself, the little curl of a smile at the corner of her offsetting the mournful expression she usually wears. He looks up at Jax, no exasperation to be seen in his own fondness. Opens his mouth. Promptly closes it again. Returns to his sketch with a small smile of his own, sheepish but pleased. The door chimes, the tones soft and serene. Then chimes again, which rather ruins the flimsy pretense that it's a request and not a command. The intercom comes to life a moment later, no video, just Nick Fury's voice, his drawl heavier than usual but sounding calm as you like, "I'm sorry to interrupt, Mister Holland, but I have urgent need to speak with you." For his part, Jax has been paying Steve admittedly very little mind for a time. Paying the world very little mind, too, it seems -- when the door chimes at first it doesn't even seem to sink in. The second chime does register, or at least pulls away enough of his concentration that the small flickers of tree life that blossom and vanish on the canvas are now spreading, walls shifting gnarled and wooden, branches crawling their way across the ceiling. It's only the sound of the actual voice breaking through that pulls his attention away from the painting -- first with a sharper frown to Steve that melts apologetically a moment later when his brain catches up enough to realize that Steve has been obediently innocent of breaking the silence. He turns his attention to the intercom instead -- no frown but an oddly chipper-bright smile, his hair blossoming into its trademark peacock-ombre, a glimmer of makeup spreading across his face just enough to make him look actually alive and colorful instead of just spectral. "Don't worry," he reassures Fury cheerfully once he's set his palette down, ambled over to pull the door open, "I already had a firm talk with Spence and that thing with all the crickets will not happen again." At the first tone from the door chime, Steve sits upright and starts to reach for the shield leaning against the bed at his side. Does not pick it up. Does narrow his eyes at the door, but seems content to ignore it even when it chimes again. Lowers his hand at the sound of Fury's voice, though he doesn't look any less baleful when he gets up to trail after Jax. "Sounds like it's still happening, on and off." "I appreciate that," sounds utterly perfunctory. Fury does not look even slightly concerned about the thing with all the crickets. It's an open question whether he's even registered Jax's promise at all. His eye tracks aside to Steve only briefly before returning to Jax, his expression firmly set in his light perennial scowl. He's in his shirtsleeves, though still black on black, and definitely looks like he just got up from his desk a minute ago. He hesitates before stepping inside -- looks almost like he's about to ask permission before he thinks better of it. "I've just been informed someone in our ranks leaked surveillance footage of this room to the press, including a photo of you in the nude." Was he looping that line on his way down? He delivers it very smoothly, though his scowl deepens all the while. "And of you gentlemen -- kissing. On behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the U.N., I take full responsibility." The bright smile slowly melts away from Jax's expression as his eye widen, his pierced brows hiking way up. On this paintbrush his grip has tightened, looking now even more like he's readying the tool for stabbing. A furious crimson has darkened his cheeks, the space around him tinging pink as though reflecting the burning. "Which one'a your pigs --" His voice is lower here, but the sentence cuts off with an abrupt click of teeth, his gaze lowering to the floor. Steve opens his mouth (again) and closes it (again) without actually speaking. His hand curls into a fist at his side, and then abruptly it's not at his side anymore. He telegraphs the right hook plainly, but even if Fury sees it coming, the blow is almost certainly too fast for him to avoid flat-footed. Is Fury flat-footed? He did start to drop his weight and shift back, but his eye is just a little too slow to shift from Jax's paintbrush to Steve's fist. Said fist catches him squarely on the jaw, snapping his head hard to one side. The rest of him follows, and though he breaks the fall reasonably well he's slow to rise. An alarm is going off, in here and out in the hallway. "Belay that!" Fury bellows. The rush of booted feet in the hallway outside quiet, and the klaxon follows a moment later. "That's fair. Jesus, but you hit hard." His eye patch has come loose somewhere in the middle of all this, the gnarled scars it usually covers writhing as his face contorts with pain, the eye in their midst clouded over. He doesn't bother looking for it, and doesn't sway too egregiously when he finally straightens up. "We're carrying out a full investigation. I promise you, we will find those responsible and deal with them harshly." Somewhere in the middle of this, Jax's posture has eased, a flicker of amusement cutting into the anger that was growing in his expression. There's a stripey movie-theatre bag of popcorn that has materialized in one hand in the middle of Fury's recovery. "We got a whole entire child up in here while your peeping Tom --" He doesn't look at the security cameras where they're tucked into the corners of the room, where they sit overhead in the hall, but it's very clear he's been quite well aware of their locations when a moment later there's a series of flashes, quiet sizzle-crackle--pops, curls of acrid burning-plastic smoke. Somewhere, monitors have gone dark as neat and precise spears of light make quick work of the cameras. "Well. Sure won't happen again, now, will it, sir?"