Logs:Clusterfuck

Clusterfuck
Dramatis Personae Fury, Lucien	2021-07-12 "Ah. Thank goodness they have their priorities in order, then."
Location <DC> AKA White House - Lucien's Suite
This one-room residence suite has more in common with a small luxury apartment than any hotel room. Bright and airy, it is tastefully appointed with a wealth of mirrors, and furnished in understated earth tones. Just inside the entryway, the dining area sports a round table in smokey glass, three chairs, and one long bench against the wall. The kitchen is small but efficiently designed with steel appliances and a full set of cookware, utensils, elegant if utilitarian tableware, and various other thoughtful homey conveniences. A long, gleaming limestone counter separates the kitchen from the living room with its perhaps surprising variety of seating options, from tall stools at the counter to classic armchairs to the soft, comfortable couch facing a widescreen TV across a smoky glass coffee table. A set of french doors in the living room open onto a balcony with a breathtaking view of the cityscape. Opposite that, a short hallway accesses the half bath, linen closet, laundry machines, and the frosted glass sliding doors to the bedroom. This last, while admitted cozy, does not skimp on luxury. A king size bed takes up a good deal of the floor space, a long closet much of one wall, with an integrated chest of drawers, and the adjoining full bath is perhaps startlingly spacious with a generous soaking tub, rainwater shower, and a counter with two sinks. As has been his reluctant habit during his frequent and lengthy trips to DC of late, Nick Fury is dressed to the nines. Were it not for the scars and the eye patch, he might pass for any other power broker fresh off a long day on the Hill in a fine black three-piece suit, white linen shirt, and a solid red tie. He'd shucked his jacket before slumping down onto a stool across the counter from the kitchen where dinner still in progress. "Well," he says mildly, leaning forward to prop his elbows on the counter. "Doom says they're still alive." Across the counter dressed in pale blue-and-white striped seersucker shirt, top button undone, sleeves neatly rolled up to his elbows, and gray linen trousers, Lucien looks like he's been paying more attention to the food he is plating than to Fury, drizzling herbed lemon butter over roasted asparagus and zucchini laid neatly to frame lobster bucatini (the pasta made fresh just before going into the water not long before.) His lips compress thinly; it's only after he adds slices of garlic bread to each plate that he allows himself a quiet, "-- mmm. Polite of him to let you know. I don't suppose he elaborated any further as to the point of this exercise?" "Nope. That was all he said, but the 'don't give me incentive to change my mind' was taken as read." Fury sits up a bit straighter and loosens his tie with an irritated jerk. "He's too much of a goddamn showoff to lie about something like that." His eye drops to follow Lucien's progress on dinner. "Even after we lost contact with them, I figured the op wasn't a total clusterfuck yet, just precariously circling the clusterfuck landing zone. Then all this." His hand tips out at -- the whole city outside the glass french doors, apparently. "I think it's safe to say we have touchdown." This time, Lucien's "Mmm," is a bit more pronounced, his brows hitching slightly as he transfers the food to the dining table -- neatly set already, with a pitcher of ice water and a bottle of Fiano di Avellino waiting already. "Matters of international diplomacy are a bit outside my bailiwick; I'm sure you have a much better gauge than I." His musing is quiet, as he uncorks the wine. "-- but when it comes to Steve Rogers, I have broadened my expectations as to where exactly the apex of clusterfuck might reach." Fury looses a deep grumble that never quite coalesces into words, at the reminder of Steve's proclivity for trouble. "I hope to hell and back Allred is more sensible. It's a low bar, but I haven't seen enough of the man to get a read on that. It's only leveraging the safety of Captain Fucking America that I got the Joint Chiefs to hold off invading." He follows Lucien to the table. "I do appreciate this," he adds, as he pulls out a chair, slipping into the deeper Southern drawl that is (probably) his native accent. "I ain't had nothin' but takeout and coffee for a week and I'm making for an awful guest." "Ah. Thank goodness they have their priorities in order, then." Lucien's voice is very dry, his nostrils flaring slightly on his very small huff of exhale. "-- I do generally trust Steve to be adept at finding his way in and out of trouble, but I rather expect at this point you won't need him or Doom either to spread discord. I've yet to hear Captain America connected with all this in the news but in my experience once they get there, you will have entirely new fires in need of containment." His eyes have been tipped down towards the glasses as he fills them, but flick up toward Fury after this, their ice-blue all the more striking for the dissonance from their natural shade. "Given your woes it seems a bit callous to say this is a refreshing change of pace, but --" A small curl tugs at one side of his mouth as he takes his own seat. "I am unaccustomed to cooking for one. Sitting down to real food and real conversation makes this feel not so far from home." "Now, publicity ain't my bailiwick, but I got folks on that while I do damage control on the Hill. Given this administration is leaky as a sieve, I reckon them new fires won't be far behind." The furrow of Fury's brows is mild, but shadows his face quite dramatically. "God willing it ain't leakin' from our end." He doesn't sound particularly confident in God's will, here. A quiet sigh escapes him as he sinks down into his chair. "Callous? Not hardly. This feast aside -- and it sure smells amazing -- fraternizin' with someone actually glad to see me?" His eyebrows lift, uneven but not apparently all that skeptical. "That don't happen much in the best of times. I been at them rear echelon motherfuckers like a dog with a bone, wouldn't surprise me none if they caved on that whole war business just to be shot of me for a spell." Something else passes over his face, wistful but fleeting. He does not smile, after, but his expression eases, at least. "Think my whole life been one kinda far from home or another. I don't mean no 'lonely at the top' bullshit, it's just -- me." He picks up his wine glass and salutes his host. "Care to propose a toast?" "Avert a war and stave off the company of men who've long since forgotten the human costs of the games they play? Two birds, really. Imagine if they wanted to spend time with you off the clock." Lucien does not actually give an exaggerated shudder, here, but nevertheless there is something to suggest he has in the distaste that drips off his voice. His fingers curl around his glass; he watches the legs of the pale wine running down the sides of the wide bowl as he lifts it, before looking back to Fury. His words are considerably gentled when he speaks again: "To those who see us --" He tips the glass just slightly in the other man's direction, "-- and are glad all the same." "It's a subtle art, making just enough noise to get your way but not enough to get writ off. I may not have age and experience on most of 'em, but I like to flatter myself I'm a sight more treacherous, when I need to be." He meets the offered toast with a delicate tap of his glass, the note it draws high and clear. He meets Lucien's strange blue eyes, too, his steady dark gaze and level voice for once not appraising or calculating or even all that opaque -- just pleased. "To those who really see us, and don't run for the hills."