Logs:Wild Card

Wild Card
Dramatis Personae Fury, Steve	2021-01-29 "You and your gut -- and I'm being real charitable here -- have decided to trust this wild card from another world on account of you trying to assemble the Social Justice Avengers outta two whole white boys."
Location <NYC> S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ - Times Square
This corner office is big, bright and airy, which is not cheap to come by in midtown Manhattan. On one side, a huge glass desk sits in front of the floor-to-ceiling window looking out over Times Square. The far corner has a leather couch, a coffee table, a liquor cabinet and a sideboard, but the rest of the floor space was left open between eclectically stocked bookshelves. Fury hasn't been out of his office since the morning briefing, tucked at his desk and hard at work dressed in the usual no-nonsense black duster over black button-down and black slacks. He doesn't fully divert his attention from the holographic display he's reading on when his door opens. "'Morning, Cap. On the off chance you aren't aware, you supposed to make an appointment to see me." For all that, his voice sounds very mild. "To what do I owe the pleasure?" Steve has the good grace to look at least slightly abashed at the reminder as he strides in and closes the door behind himself. "Coulson said you weren't busy." His color scheme today make his eyes look stormy: a light green button down cinched with a tie covered with tessellated diamonds in green and gray, his plainfront slacks a darker gray, black dress boots, his shield slung across his back on its harness. "But we need to talk. About mutants at S.H.I.E.L.D." "Motherfucking traitor," Fury rumbles. "You know that Coulson is not my secretary. Coffee?" He's rising to pour himself some, either way. "When do we not need to talk about mutants, as far as you're concerned? I take it this isn't an 'I have here in my hand a list' kind of talk about mutants at S.H.I.E.L.D." "Yes, please." Steve does not sit, but coasts to a stop against the chair across from Fury's seat, leaning against its back while he surreptitiously adjusts the brace on his right hand with his left. "Sure acts like it, sometimes." His expression wavers between annoyance and incredulity. "It's not that kind of talk, and I think you should spend a lot more time than you do considering how you approach mutantkind. The way you interpret your mission skews heavily toward them." Fury refills his own glass mug and pours another for Steve from his somewhat overengineered coffee machine, then hands the latter to his visitor on his way back to his own high-back chair. "The hell do you know about how much time I spend thinking about that?" He lowers himself back into his chair and sets his coffee aside to cool, steepling his fingers in front of him. "It's a goddamned clusterfuck even aside from the part where there's people walking around out there can end the world with a thought." He flings one hand in the direction of the immense window behind him. "I got no illusions about the way our society treats them and no interest in making it worse, but the fact remains they're dangerous." Steve accepts the coffee with a dip of his head and a "Thank you." He does not wait for it to cool or flinch at the temperature when he takes a sip. "I'll buy that it's on your mind a lot," he allows. "Still think your conclusions are wrong. Without input from the mutant community, you are liable to make it worse, whether you intend it or not." He clenches his jaw and sets his mug down on the desk, though he remains standing. "We are all dangerous, under the right circumstances, and those don't even need to be extraordinary. Any man behind the wheel of a car can kill." The lift of Fury's brows is deeply unimpressed. "I ain't above being wrong, but I think you're allowing your friendships to color your perspective on this." He rubs his hand down over his beard. "Even after seeing all this from the inside, you still think we're the mutant police? Capturing and imprisoning people is something I actively want to avoid, no matter what's in their DNA." His voice had grown a touch louder, more agitated, but he reins it back in now. "That's why we license people do drive." "I'm sure my friends do bias me," Steve admits readily, "but they've also taught me things I'd have never considered otherwise. They know what's best for their community -- including how to manage dangerous powers. They don't want to see the world destroyed, either." His eyes narrow slightly at Fury. "Having a license doesn't stop folks crashing their cars, and not having one doesn't stop folks driving, either. The point of licensing is that education cuts down on the danger of driving." His right hand tightens on the back of the chair. "We can't require a license to live, but we can give folks opportunities to learn control. And we could sure as heck try to listen more, which you'd have an easier time doing if hired mutants." "If mutantkind wanted to destroy the world, it'd've been destroyed already." Here Fury pauses, picks up his coffee. "Humans doing it a helluva lot more handily, and whatever you think that is not off my radar, either." He finally takes a slow sip, watching Steve intently over the transparent curve of his mug. "What, you ain't see me hire Dr. Banner and Ms. Holland?" Before Steve can object, he raises an appeasing hand. "I know, I know. Can't say I don't have my own reservations about recruiting mutant agents, but I do actually answer to the World Security Council and they'd throw an almighty shitfit because as much as I'm trying to do otherwise they still want S.H.I.E.L.D. to be the motherfucking mutant police." "What if one of your agents were to manifest?" Steve presses, leaning forward. "I don't know how common that is in adults, but I know it happens. At minimum you should hire mutant consultants to help develop better policies around that and how you interact with the mutant community overall." He gulps down more of his coffee -- the gesture ever so slightly aggressive. "But I'm not one for half-measures. Maybe I can show you -- and the World Security Council -- how it's done. DJ Allred will be co-captain of the Avengers." "I'd say it depends a lot on what he or she does about it," Fury's reply is curt, now. "Look, I can't argue, we got a lot of work to do, and I'll consider your recommendation. Jesus Christ, but you are one obstinate sonuvabitch." He takes up his coffee again without looking at it, glaring at Steve, but the mug never makes it to his mouth. "Are you outta your goddamn mind? DJ Allred, who had his entire fucking arm ripped off last month, then got displaced into the wrong dimension and is a mental breakdown waiting to happen? Which, I might add, is more or less the sum total of what we know about him." He sets his mug down, hard. "That DJ Allred?" "You said you needed someone who'd challenge you," Steve retorts. "Careful what you wish for." Fury's tirade seems, paradoxically, to calm him a bit. "That very one." His next sip of his coffee is -- still kind of fierce. "I'm not expecting fisticuffs of him now -- or ever, if he doesn't want to do that. God knows he'd be tactically invaluable even if he never fought again." There's something like skepticism etched into his brows, though it's not clear at what. "But what I need most right now is someone who can help me build this team right, from the start. No man knows better than he how wrong the Avengers can go." He sets his own cup down, gently but with finality. "I trust him." "I also said you were gonna be a pain in my ass," Fury grumbles darkly. "And damned if you ain't delivering." He picks up his coffee and glances at his liquor cabinet. "It is too early in the day for this bullshit. So..." He settles for continuing to drink his coffee undoctored. "You and your gut -- and I'm being real charitable here -- have decided to trust this wild card from another world on account of you trying to assemble the Social Justice Avengers outta two whole white boys." His eyebrows lift up. "I guess there's no way I'm talking you out of this?" Steve bows his head slightly. "I do take your point, but mutants are the group of people who bear the brunt of your concerns about 'existential threats'." He studies Fury closely. "If you think I'm too focused on that issue, you have yourself to blame in part, and no, you will not change my mind." He straightens ever so slightly. "You take us both or neither of us. Me and my gut think you want the Avengers to do things differently than S.H.I.E.L.D., anyway." Fury's eye narrows fractionally. "Well." His mouth pulls unhappily to one side. "I guess if there's nothing else we can say about Allred -- and there ain't much we can say, yet -- he does have a solid record on saving the planet. You let him know we have excellent therapists, if he goes in for that sort of thing." Draining the rest of his coffee, he sets the mug down and splays his hands before him. "I want the Avengers to do things how you think they ought to be done, so long as it's out of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s hands. If you need him for that?" His shrug is small, fatalistic. "So be it."