Logs:Disclosures

Disclosures
Dramatis Personae Fury, Lucien
In Absentia Rasheed, Matt, Gaétan, Jax, Spencer, Ryan, Hive	2023-08-07 "Well. I can work with not a telepath."
Location <NYC> Fury's Safe House (1/??) - Crown Heights
From the outside, this house looks like just another historic brownstone. It is, in most of the ways that matter, just another historic brownstone, little different from the others in this "up and coming" neighborhood. And, like many others, there's a sign out front indicating it has been sold to a development company that hasn't actually bothered developing it yet. And so it has lain apparently empty in a traffic camera blind spot--incidentally, of course--another silent witness to the systematic dismantling of New York's Black neighborhoods. Despite the apparent neglect of the development company that theoretically owns it, the interior of the house is clean and well-maintained and tastefully appointed in mid-century modern style, straight edges softened with subtle curves in rich polished teak and upholstery in a warm palette of earthtones. For all the care that went into furnishing and decorating, the place feels a bit like a model home, too perfect to be a place people actually live. Fury puts his phone away and then, despite having presumably just seen the time, checks his watch. He's a in black button-down with the sleeves rolled up and black jeans, decked in a black apron as well, humming quietly along to "Mr. Tambourine Man" on the radio as he cleans up after his cooking. There are pork chops in a covered skillet, collard greens beside the thick gravy, soup beans simmering, and biscuits keeping warm in the oven. He checks his watch again, then clicks off both the oven and the burner under the beans. The quiet knock at the door is perfunctory, an announcement and not a request; Lucien is letting himself in a short moment later. He's taken up Fury's humming, softly along with the tune as he sheds his shoes at the door, leaving him in a gray blazer with peaked lapels and a single blue buttonhole on each cuff, a pale blue dress shirt with understated labradorite cufflinks, and tailored dark indigo jeans. He locks up behind himself before crossing into the kitchen, offering no greeting but crossing to the oven to turn it back on, low. He's then divesting himself of his sole visible burden -- from the tote bag he sets on the counter he's taking a small casserole dish with some very peachy-smelling dessert inside, grabbing potholders so that he can swap that for the biscuits in the warming oven and setting a very small tupperware with several fresh basil leaves on the counter. Only then does he lean up against the counter, turning very sincere eyes on Fury as he asks: "Sitrep?" Fury steps back to shift himself out of Lucien's way, watching the casserole dish go into the oven. "All parties present, supper imminent," he replies mildly, "and word come down the line is we might even get dessert." Even milder, just casually interested as he starts plating the food, "Them Holland peaches?" "Mmm. I do believe your intel is sound." Lucien is watching the plating, now, and though he is decidedly not smiling there's an ease to his posture and a warmer cast to his expression and the very slight crinkle of his eyes that suggests something of a pleased smile all the same as Fury works. "They are. Have you yet had the pleasure? The farmers' markets up here cannot hold a candle to them." "I ain't yet. I been letting my agents take all the bribes," Fury explains, "on account of my selfless generosity." He sets the plates aside and pulls down a pair of bowls for the beans. "How's their folk holding up down yonder? And your folk, for that matter?" Lucien lets out a soft huff at this, perhaps amused; it's difficult to tell. His eyes lower to the countertop, one finger describing a small circle against its surface. "I've not spoken much to Jackson," he admits, quiet, "though Spencer seems -- as well as can be expected, after such a trauma. I am sure his grandparents are overjoyed to have him returned. -- And Ryan, for that matter. I expect they rather thought he would disappear into a very dark hole, when they heard he was captured." His eyes lift to Fury again, fixing there with a quiet thought. "As did I, with my own brother." "If they'd disappeared Ryan Black on your watch, you'd have seen them ripped apart by angry Blackbirds." Fury fills up the bowls carefully. "I reckon that might've been a harder sell for Matt Tessier. Which is why I took the liberty of inviting him up Times Square." He passes the bowls off to Lucien and carries the plates himself to the table. "Figured his friends might want to come, too." There is no noticeable change in Lucien's expression, but it takes him several seconds, eerily still where he stands, before he urges his muscles back into actual motion and picks up the bowls to bring them to the table. "Just rung up Prometheus, asked if they could pop 'round for tea?" His eyes have gone fractionally wider. He swallows once, hard, as he sets the bowls down with more care than necessary. Sets himself down into his chair with considerably less, heavy and abrupt when he drops into the seat. "-- thank you." When Fury sheds his apron and returns with the utensils, he also brings two tumblers and a squat bottle with a hand-written label. "I see I shoulda poured you a drink before I gone and opened my mouth." Well, he's pouring Lucien a drink now. "Special treat from an old pal been holed up in the mountains crankin' out conspiracy theories and applejack." He fills both glasses liberally with -- presumably -- applejack. "Careful now. His conspiracies ain't shit, but his hooch is strong." He sets the bottle aside and sinks his own seat. "You're welcome," sounds awkward and almost grudging, as if he finds the topic a bit embarrassing. "Weren't a whole lot I could do, but I did what I could." Lucien's head inclines slightly, and he picks up the applejack, tipping it in a vague salute towards Fury. The first sip he takes is slow, eyes half closing as he rolls the drink in his mouth. "Prometheus has had no small interest in my brother for some time now." This statement twists his lips downward, faint and brief. "... brothers, now. No matter how nice the cardstock you sent that invite on, it is difficult to imagine they simply --" His chin rests lightly atop his curled knuckles, his other hand swirling idly at his glass and his half-lidded gaze not leaving Fury. "People who underestimate the U.N.'s capabilities have not met you, I imagine." "Interesting choice, going after an entire human, but I'm told geneticists are fond of siblings." Fury eyes Lucien thoughtfully. "Not just siblings. Look..." He rubs the deep furrows between his brows. "I was saving the unpleasant discussion 'til after supper, but seeing as no plan survives contact with the enemy and you done gone and put dessert there, I gotta move the schedule up." He drops his hand and fixes his single eye, keen and dark, on his guest. "You answer my question, and I'll answer yours: Mister Tessier, are you a mutant?" "I cannot say I have ever held great esteem for their scientific methods." Lucien quiets, taking another slow sip of his drink as Fury works up to his question. There is a small stretch of silence, his wrist rolling slow, still, at his glass. "Am I your enemy?" His hand drops, when it comes, resting now on the table. His eyes do not, only opening the faintest bit wider to regard Fury steadily back. "What would it change," he asks softly, and though his last question sounded perhaps rhetorical, this one certainly does not. "if I were?" It's hard to say whether Fury is being particularly patient. He doesn't hurry Lucien, but his glare is very critical. "Depends a lot on you. If you done lied to me up 'til now, I'mma be kinda salty about it a while. If you decide to keep lying to me, then I guess you gon be my enemy." "Mmm," is soft and thoughtful, on the edge of a quiet huff of breath. The neutrality in Lucien's expression is very determined, now, the calm in his soft voice held fiercely in place. "At what point, exactly, in our acquaintance, ought I have written you up a detailed guide to who I am? There is a lot you do not know. There is a lot you do not ask. I had thought we were simply --" Though here, for the first time, his gaze breaks. His eyes dip lower, to his glass. He lifts it for a hard swallow. "Are we having the kind of relationship where I owe you my --" This does not finish. He sets the glass down, lifts his eyes back to Fury. "I am." Fury actually appears to be thinking through his answer. "I reckon that'd be the point where I asked. I didn't say there was nothin' wrong with lying to me up 'til now." He picks up his brandy and sips at it. Then stops and sets the glass down. "Well, butter my ass and call me a biscuit. You ain't a telepath, are you?" He doesn't sound particularly concerned, nor look it when he picks up the napkin, until he comes up short with, "You ain't come out Prometheus?" Lucien's eyes lower again, his fingers curling hard against his glass. He pushes out a slow breath, but his eyes snap back up hard at Fury's first question. "I am not," there is a deceptively mild distaste layered onto his tone, "a telepath." His jaw tightens, small and brief. "No. Not me. I would have traded places with either of my brothers if I could, but I expect they imagined my genes are nowhere near as fascinating as Matthieu's and nowhere near as boring as Gaétan's. The mad scientists over there did not think I would much assist them trying to crack whatever code they think we hold." He downs a quick hard swallow of his drink. "Not that Matthieu's experience made me much keener to spread this particular information." "Well. I can work with not a telepath." Despite his apparent confidence in that, Fury does relax with the confirmation. "Not exciting's even better. Ain't neither of us like surprises." His mouth presses into a grim line. "For instance, the fact they done cracked that code already. I know who the head of Prometheus was, and he knows my priorities. If he turns up dead, that key to evolution ends up on the evening news." He regards Lucien steadily. "I think you understand how serious that threat is." "Are you telling me you arranged with Doctor Toure to --" Lucien has started to lower his glass, but at this news he simply lifts it up again and drains the rest. When he sets his hand down his eyes have fixed on the empty tumbler. "That is one hell of a dead man's switch. What, exactly, is in it?" Fury blinks, his expression too firmly set through this to be as altogether unruffled as he probably wants to look. "I did, but you see why I can't really claim all the credit. They say you catch more flies with honey, but even if it was the threat alone, I'd have been highly motivated to find him a way out." He picks up the bottle somewhat automatically to refill Lucien's glass. "Should I stop being so impressed with your alcohol tolerance, or did you hone that the old fashioned way like I did?" He sets the bottle down and picks up his suitcase, producing an unassuming electronic device. "A rapid mutant detector. The good doctor gifted me with his prototype, though again I'd have had to take his threat seriously even without the actual Pandora's Box in hand. It's off," he adds, heavily. "But it does work." "This?" Lucien is lifting the glass with a small hitch of brows before he takes a swallow, "took years of honest work, first; I had a drinking problem before I could speak." He says with a casual levity that makes it difficult to tell whether this is an exaggeration or not. He glances swift to Fury, gaze fixing there a long moment when he says the device is off. But, then, looking to the device itself, his expression dropping into a flat-blank mask somewhat more unsettling than his usual carefully inoffensive calm. He turns his hand up, out slowly towards Fury in a silent request as tentative as if he were asking the older man to hand him a live viper. "He said he wanted it in more responsible hands. Likewise his ah...friends." Fury hesitates, then gingerly sets the box down in Lucien's hand. "You'd think all those years with that telepath on they team, someone coulda put it together. In the end, it's goddamn lucky they didn't." He spreads his hands and picks his glass back up for a swallow of the crisp brandy. "But now I got to keep this motherfucker alive, which means keeping his secret." "Not everyone who has a weapon seeks to wantonly use it. On their friends, no less. Besides which," Lucien's expression has not shifted, his eyes still fixed on the device as his fingers slowly curl around it, "I expect that Dr. Toure has had rather extensive coaching in psionic self-defense." He studies the scanner, turning it over slowly in his hand before -- just as gingerly -- flicking it on, to very little effect. Now he's eying its display a long moment, before turning it towards himself and holding down its trigger. It is unsurprising and fairly underwhelming, perhaps, when the display flares silently to life, several lights lighting bright as the actual screen gives its bland confirmation: yep. That's definitely a mutant there, mutanting away. Lucien does not turn the device around. Just lets go of the trigger and, after a noticeable delay, offers it back. "Crisse de câlice de tabarnak." Despite the profanity, his tone is as flat as his expression. With a great effort he arranges it back into a softer-edged neutrality when he looks up at Fury. "What are your priorities, Director Fury?" "If I was gon be friends with folks hell-bent on dismantling my evil side hustle," Fury says, a little indignantly, "I'd aim to be a much better one. Or much worse." His eye is just a little wide as he watches the device in action, and when he receives it back he turns it on himself for a similarly expected result: no mutant here. "As far as this thing goes, keeping it and the science behind it buried as long as possible. As for Doctor Toure..." He flicks the device off and puts it away. "Watch him like a hawk and keep him unburied as long as possible. How do you know about him, anyway?" Lucien's mouth gives a very small twitch when Fury's eye goes wider. "I am still not telepathing you," he assures Fury, lightly. "And yes. It does seem that he could have saved himself quite a bit of trouble by letting that tumor take Hive." His eyes widen -- just fractionally before settling back -- when Fury scans himself. This time the quirk of his lips lends a touch more amusement to his expression, not carried over into his very serious tone: "I am an actor, Director Fury, I should hope I could spot another one." Though the amusement drops back away with his next admission. "-- I only wish I had spotted it considerably sooner." "If you was, I'd be even more impressed with your poker face," Fury says dryly, "and I'm pretty impressed already. What is your -- power, or whatever you want to call it?" He picks up his glass and drinks deep. "Well, you don't have to tell me no trade secrets, but we might want to work out some way to avoid stepping on each other toes. I'm thinking about offering him a job." Lucien pulls in a small breath, and there's a long pause before he extends one hand across the table. His fingers curl back towards himself at this, though. "You are what." It's not accusatory -- it's not really anything. His eyes have locked steadily on Fury and it takes a moment more before he turns his hand up again, palm up on the table in a silent invitation. "Can't kill him." Fury says this, cavalier and even more exasperated than usual, as if it were a profound inconvenience to him. "If I turn him over to the ICC, he'd be dead soon as the news broke. Uncle Sam's real busy cleaning up the bed he just done shat, but once the dust settles you know there's even blacker projects for him to work on." He reaches out at a minute delay that doesn't quite read as hesitation, and settles his fingers in the cradle of Lucien's hand. His nervous system is keyed up, not to the point of fight-or-flight, though certainly primed to go that way. Behind it is a profound exhaustion that speaks of too much work and alcohol on too little sleep recently, all the aches and pains of his many (many) old injuries clamoring for his attention over the paltry objection of some ibuprofen. "But not if I snap him up where I can keep an eye on him. He'll feel safer with the UN, less liable to get a wild hair up his ass at the first sign of danger. I don't care how good an actor he is, Ion wanna see nobody with doomsday stored in his head improvise." Lucien's expression grows a touched more pinched as Fury speaks, but he only nods his head once, heavily, in a reluctant agreement. "Even with the few of us who know, there are already -- justifiably -- some quite out for blood." His fingers have curled around Fury's, and for a moment it is just that; the solid press of his touch, the warmth of skin on skin. What follows is -- at one and the same time a wholly familiar feeling and yet unlike any he's given to Fury before. Not, here, the faint and subtle trickles of warmth, the slow-ebbing quiet gentling of pains as Lucien's skillful hands work at aching muscles. Right now it's a swift and complete obliteration of pains, aches vanishing completely and exhaustion dissipating, leaving a bright rejuvenation in its wake. The nervous agitation is untouched, Lucien's ministrations here purely physical; but in that physicality years have been lifted off of Fury's worn frame in a moment. Lucien, for all that, looks at once older and younger for it -- a heavier tension weighing at his posture, an apprehensive uncertainty in his bright eyes where they watch Fury. "You got a better idea, I'm listening." Fury's focus on his hand is so intense Lucien can feel where his brain lights up without really even looking. "And if y'all can figure out how to disarm his insurance policy, have at." That focus shatters with the strength of his surprise, followed fast by relief, then wonder, then a fear that in truth was there already there -- perhaps has always been there, deep and abiding. "I'll be damned," he manages after a mad scramble to regain his composure. "This is how you get creaky old men to spoil you." "We will look into it," Lucien agrees, no doubt sounding a good deal more offhanded about this than he feels. His breath quickens through Fury's flurry of feelings, and does not quite return to his baseline, though the set of his shoulders eases. "I admit it helps considerably," he admits with a soft puff of laughter, "but you have no idea how good the sex can be if I am not holding back." "Just keep me posted" Fury cautions, feeling a lot less offhanded than he sounds. His already busy cognition is grinding away even harder now, his fear grown starker, and then muddled with suspicion, curiosity, and an almost reluctant arousal. "I'm a real skeptical sort," he hedges, "and it don't help you already the finest lover I've ever known. Well." His smile is thin, uncertain, and maybe just a little more crooked than can be accounted for by the scars that pull it askew. "Don't hurt, neither. You might just have to convince me." Lucien's eyes have gone just a little wider, his pupils faintly dilating; Fury's arousal, his curiosity, his fear, all echo back to him just a touch more intense than before, mingled carefully into a heady kind of thrill. It's only accentuated by the soft flickers of delight that shiver out from Lucien's touch as his fingers slide up Fury's arm, his drink and the meal fully forgotten in this current eclipse of focus. The hesitation isn't entirely gone, here, something hopeful and cautious beneath the brighter curiosity in his gaze, but his voice is soft and steady as he leans in toward his lover, presses lips to Fury's neck with a teasing-brief flutter of a pleasure that sings ecstasy through Fury's senses and then slips back away. "If you let me, Director Fury, I could be quite persuasive."