Logs:Competent

Competent
Dramatis Personae Fury, Lucien
In Absentia	2021-07-21 "My life and work seem to dash me up against powerful people so very often. I'd be in pieces by now if I hadn't learned something of how to steer around them."
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 admittedly 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. It's a glorious summer morning in DC, already blazing hot but not yet oppressively humid. Fury does not usually sleep in, but then, this isn't a usual situation, and so he is only just lazily rolling out of bed at an unfathomably late 0730. The sounds of speech drift in from elsewhere in the suite, too faint to make out despite the small space and glass doors. Though he was slow to rouse, he completes his ablutions with the speed and efficiency of a career soldier. He slips out of the bedroom in shirtsleeves, still fiddling with the button on one cuff, and leans sidewise against the wall just outside the kitchen, watching his host at work. "-- thank goodness he has other demands on his time; too many more demonstrations like that and they'll be replacing me with the real Cap." Even through his warm amusement there's a certain crisp polish to the cadence of Lucien's voice; he stands at the counter in black running pants and a blue performance tee, phone tucked between ear and shoulder as he dredges thick slices of bread through a wash of egg. "Steve. Noel. It was my my pleasure, and thank you for having us." His tone is softer when he sets the phone down, looking to Fury briefly and then back down to the counter, where several other ingredients are already neatly set out. "I don't have coffee here," he informs the other man, "but the hotel will, if you -- care for that kind of thing." Though he does not smile, there is a touch of amusement in the lift of Fury's eyebrows, forever lopsided from the vicious scars running across the left one. "I drink tea." This sounds ever so slightly defensive. "Preferably strong and cold and saturated with sugar, but I ain't picky." He amends this almost immediately with, "My caffeine withdrawal ain't picky, anyhow." Rounding the counter into the living room, he settles onto a stool facing Lucien. "You sleep alright?" It wasn't evident that Lucien was at all tense until he eases at Fury's assurance that he drinks tea, a more comfortable settling to his posture even if his expression cannot really be called a smile. "Soundly." He does set a kettle on, preparing two mugs before returning to the rest of his preparations -- onions to chop, toast to set on the griddle. "I hope you like your eggs scrambled, because I've beaten them already." Now he is watching Fury, steadier than before, a curious consideration in his gaze. Now it's Fury's turn to untense, though he mostly covers it up by leaning forward to rest his elbows on the counter. "Guess you mighta noticed I was dead to the world. I don't normally..." He trails off and continues instead with a quiet, "Ain't slept that good in an age. Figured these old bones would be registering their displeasure with me right about now, but they not complaining. Don't s'pose I gotta tell you to 'preciate your joints while you can." He huffs a breath that in anyone else might be a laugh. "I like eggs any ol' way 'cept cooked through to rubber how my mama made 'em, God rest her soul." He looks back at Lucien. "You do all that," indicated by a nod unerringly oriented in the direction the National Theater, "eight times a week, and your own PR, too?" "It won't surprise you to know I know some excellent physical therapists, if your joints have a need. But yes." Lucien's tone is mild, here, "there always is something to be said for a decent workout to earn you a good night's rest." He drops a generous pat of ghee into a pan before adding the beaten eggs, pushing them very slowly with a spatula as one eyebrow quirks up. "Why, who does yours?" "Only so much physical therapy can do for this amount of wear and tear -- you seen the scars." Fury does not sound particularly troubled by his decrepitude. "But that workout woulda been worth getting no sleep at all and a trip to my long-suffering physical therapist." He laces his fingers together, looking up at Lucien. "Me? I'm not about the limelight, but as far as my job goes, we got a whole Information Management department been working overtime since the Latveria mission got FUBAR." His hands unlace and turn up. "'Course, Stark done gone and blew alla that right out the water with his 'Iron Man' bit. Our contingency plans didn't take him into account, but..." He gestures at Lucien's phone. "I know you ain't doing it for us, but your work on Rogers's part in this has saved our damage control folks a lot of scrambling." 'Information Management,' Lucien mouths silently as he drops goat cheese and herbs and onions into the eggs, flips over the toast. Aloud, just a touch dry: "Yes, I do recall the pest control cover story in Staten Island." He gives his head a very small shake as he removes the tea from where it's been steeping. "Oh, the world is quite small these days, Director Fury. I imagine it takes about as much effort staying out of the limelight in your line of work as it takes me to get myself into it." The slight twitch at the corner of his mouth is not without a certain wry amusement. "... Steve is something of a force all to himself, yes." "I do have a bad rep in the intelligence community," Fury admits, "but ain't no publicist gonna fix that. Outside of my esteemed colleagues, though -- you're right, it's taken some work. Don't hurt I been a spy since before the Internet went global and a mistrustful somabitch a sight longer." He straightens up and rolls his left shoulder slowly. "You know, I went through a Captain America phase as a boy. None of them comics ever prepared me for the real deal, and how much of a headache he was gonna be. But you?" His eyebrows arch. "Mister Tessier, you are a force in your own right." "I admit I have astonishingly little insight into what a good reputation in the intelligence community might comprise." Lucien's eyes are tipped downward, watching curds form under the gentle push of his spatula through the eggs. "Sera and I have been watching a lot of Carmen Sandiego lately but I suspect its portrayal of international espionage is not wholly applicable to --" His fingers unfurl lazily in Fury's direction. "Mmm." Now Lucien does have a smile, just small, a slight warmth crinkling the corners of his eyes. "You keep saying things like that it just might go to my head." He begins to plate the food, stacking the toast just so before adding the creamy eggs on the side. "My life and work seem to dash me up against powerful people so very often. I'd be in pieces by now if I hadn't learned something of how to steer around them." "Depends." Fury's smile is quick and knife-sharp, there and gone, though something of it lingers in his eye. "If you want to keep your head down and serve your country, best rep is no rep. If you want to save the world..." He gives a small shrug, actually symmetrical for a change. "...maybe sometimes you gotta play that mysterious woman in red who stay one step ahead of everyone else. Or that crazy one-eye badass who might just destroy anyone who crosses him." He watches Lucien's hands for a moment before his eye flicks up to the other man's face, his own expression unreadable. "Or that fixer who always seem to know what to do when shit goes sideways. Thing is--" His hesitation jars with the confident, cavalier tone of his voice, his effortlessly perfect posture. "If you don't learn to step out that role sometimes, you might wind up a lonely old codger ain't got much left but his role." "For the world's sake, I am glad if it has, here and there, some fierce advocates." Lucien stirs milk and sugar into the tea, arranging cups, saucers and breakfast plates all together with flatware on a small black tray. "It's always been a bit of a comfort. Knowing -- someone competent is involved, when things -- as they so often do -- start to go awry." He's somewhat overly meticulous about positioning these things, lining the plates up next to each other just so, setting forks and knives with an abundance of care on the napkins. "But there is time enough yet to find other comforts, no?" He lifts the tray, lifts his eyes back to Fury, his head inclining towards the balcony doors. "Perhaps we might start with breakfast." Fury actually does laugh this time, just one brief "hah!" Though his head shakes he does not sound disapproving in the least. "It beats the hell outta the alternative, but sometimes I sure do wish competence was enough. Smarter to be lucky and all that." He pushes to his feet, studying Lucien thoughtfully. "There's always time until there ain't. But today? Time enough for breakfast, anyway."