Logs:Don't Mean a Thing

Don't Mean a Thing
Dramatis Personae Fury, Ion
In Absentia Lucien	2024-07-09 "That's classified."
Location <NYC> Mockingbird - Tribeca
With blacked-out windows and a tasteful but plain facade, the Mockingbird doesn't look like much at all from the outside. You'd probably miss it if you weren't specifically searching for it, and once inside you'd be informed the establishment is members-only--on a technicality, since membership costs next to nothing. Inside, the cozy club is styled after an early 20th century lounge, complete with vintage furniture, an antique long bar, and live music nightly. All of the employees and many of the regulars habitually dress in a melange of '30s and '40s fashion. The dance floor is not large, just an irregular space between tables and booths, but there's almost always someone cutting a rug. Director Nicholas J. Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been coming here since before Ryan Black made it cool, and he is too stubborn to let the Blackbirds ruin Mockingbird for him. He's on a break from the dancing at the moment, hunched over his gin and tonic at the bar. His vest, dress shirt, suspenders, trousers, oxfords, and eyepatch are all black, as is the fedora and jacket he's not currently wearing. He drains his glass and gestures silently to the bartender for another, and scowls at the club over his shoulder while he waits for it. Maybe he's not scowling. Maybe that's just how his face looks when he's out on town enjoying himself. Maybe. Has Ion been coming here since before it was cool? Has he come here ever before? The bartender is greeting him warmly as Ion leans up against the bar -- but then, maybe there is something about his cheerful exuberance that just elicits that in strangers. He makes a striking bright contrast to Fury, in his deep red zoot suit, bold yellow shirt. The double-loop gold chains on the suit are glittering with extremely unnecessary diamonds; lord only knows what the attached watch looks like. "{Guess I just blessed to only run into you with your dancing shoes on.}" Down one hand, up one very neat-trimmed beard and a lot of new scars, Ion doesn't look quite like he did a year lifetime ago. His broad smile is the same, though, as is the cheerful amusement in the bass rumble of his voice. Fury turns sharply toward Ion when he speaks, his startled expression briefly unguarded before it slips back behind his affected resting scowl. "{Well, that may be a curse, but it sure is a blessing you turned up alive.} Buy you a drink?" He's already catching the bartender's eye before Ion answers. "What you getting up to these days? Other than the usual? Making the cast of MID swoon and all that." "Hah," Ion's guffaw is clearly delighted, "{Blessing for who, because it sure ain't the real MID}. Those fuckers not half so charming as they TV faces." He is not fully taking the stool next to Fury's but he is resting a foot, restless-bouncing, on a lower rung. "{What you mean curse, anyway.} We ain't had fun that last time?" He's taking a quick peek at what Fury is drinking before gesturing with an indicative I'll have what he's having waggle of his hook to the drink for the bartender's benefit. "The usual. Spread some happiness all through this city. You in the market? You job seem like it could use an escape sometime." Fury gives an exaggerated shrug. "{I figure you make less work for them than the Swords, and keeping those motherfuckers down's a blessing for everyone. Even the other mutant Nazis don't like 'em.} It's a curse on account of I don't follow. Now, I admire your energy, but I wasn't even tryin' to dance that night. I was only there to keep an eye on y'all crazy-ass shindig." He guffaws roughly, shaking his head. "Is that what you call it? Well, I don't do happiness, neither." He looks up at the shelves of liquor behind the bar. "This here's my..." Her brows wrinkle, his scars pulling in such a way that probably makes him look more serious than he actually intends. "One of my few vices." "{What I seen, Nazis spend almost as much time hating on each other as they do hating on all us darkies and degens.}" Ion is leaning an elbow up against the bar, now, turning his wrist over so that the curved back of his hook can taptaptap lightly against the bar. "Shit I seen like, one, maybe two whole smile light-up your whole Man-in-Black thing at Luci's fancy-ass party. Maybe you don't do happiness, huh, but once every while a happiness sneak up and do you, eh?" He jerks his chin up in cheerful thanks, offering -- his hook out for a fistbump when the bartender slides him his drink. "You tryin' to dance tonight?" "Mister Tessier throws damn good parties, is all," Fury deadpans, scowl firmly in place. "I been a spy longer n' you been alive, I ain't easy to sneak up on. But you ain't wrong, my job can use some escapes." He allows this a little reluctantly, with an air of magnanimity. "That's why I'm always tryna dance when I'm here, long as I'm leading. I'm particular like that." He nods his thanks to the bartender and raises his glass to Ion. "Here's to blessings and curses," he says, twitching a crooked smile, "and them as you can't decide which it is." "He do. Little better when he ain't spend all his time worrying some paparazzis just waiting on him fucking up. Parties go better with plenty vice." Ion clinks his glass, or maybe his hook, against Fury's, and takes a large swig. "Maybe-maybe I send you home with some escape enough to share?" He drops his foot back to the floor and turns. Eying the dance floor. Eying Fury. "Lucky for you then, I know how to swing both way, huh?" His brows hike up, his smile still bright, and as he takes another gulp of his beverage he adds, "Any day we still breathing, that's a blessing, man." "In fairness, there is always some paparazzis just waiting on him to fuck up." Fury sounds deeply fatalistic about this. "Don't mean I'm gon tell him how to party, but I sure ain't gon enable him, neither. No offense, there's just hella better ways to escape, you know what I'm saying?" He shakes his head and takes a long pull of his drink, his eye darting surreptitiously to Ion's hook. "Can't argue with that." He rotates his stool and pushes to his feet, rolling one shoulder and then the other. "'Bout the breathing or the swinging. By which I mean dancing," he adds, a little too urgently to come off suave and humorous. "Gin an tonic," Ion is agreeing bright and easy, "dancing. That's two way. I got hella more. You got more?" He fully not-surreptitiously lifts his hook when Fury eyes it, waggling it just a little before knocking back the rest of the drink in a long gulp. He bounces to his feet, guffawing once more at Fury's not-so-nimble catch. He offers his hand -- actual hand, he's dropped the hook to his side -- to Fury. "Hope you more slicker than that on the floor." "That's classified." Fury sounds deadly serious, but there's an amused tug at the corner of his eye. He's also lifting his glass to drain what's left of his escape, staring at Ion all the while as though it were a competition. "Boy I been dancing longer 'n you been alive, too." He takes Ion's and swings himself out onto the floor before pulling the younger man to his side. He casually lays Ion's left hand on his shoulder, and just as casually lifts the hook that's replaced Ion's right hand. He rotates his own hand until he finds a good fingers-to-hook angle, right about as he finds the beat. "I'mma show you slick."