the righteous and the wrong

Sonya's lips quirked. "You'd be surprised." she remarked idly. He wasn't convinced, which was pretty sad for him. Her, too, if she could admit that much to herself. She'd wanted the payout for bringing him in. "Whether it suits you or not, LeBeau, you're on it." she pushed long hair out of her face.

She wasn't going to win. She hated a losing battle. "Tell you what. Why don't you do some digging, see for yourself what I mean. I'll be in touch." she wasn't going to be flashy about this. Calm, collected, cool as winter. She moved past him, paused a few paces past him.

"You don't fit with SHIELD. They'll tire of you, eventually; you're a liability to their eyes. How long til they put you in a box?"

Then she was gone.

send me to a broken state

itsssafetoplayalong

Clint followed the scrawny arm of the forensics tech that he had been sharing the coffee pot with. Clint had more than a passing interest in Asgardian weaponry and this kid had become a bit obsessed with it since Thor’s brother had become a consult. Or, as Clint liked to call it, a permanent hazard to earth’s yearningly opulent universality. However, no one would put that on the fucker’s name badge. Clint had even suggested that if it were too long he could make an acronym for it. HaTE YOU. The first was a bit of a mouthful after all. And he had tweaked the original name plate idea once he realized that he could spell out the word hate.

What he meant was that he really fucked hated Loki and his weapons. And Clinton Barton didn’t do fear, so he had to know the things that had run his brain through a cheese grater.

But that was superfluous information as to why he was with … Darcy? Danny? with Kid From Forensics who was know pointing out “one fine ass.”

Clint quirked an eyebrow at the young woman approaching. He didn’t recognize her. And while he was not Nick Fury, he liked to know at least 87 to 93 percent of the crew on the Hellicarrier. He approached the woman, Denny was now lagging behind. He had probably never seen such a fine ass in its natural habitat. All the blood had rushed from his face and was probably pooling in his dick. Clint felt a little, only a little, badly for the kid.

"Hi," He extended a hand. "I’m Agent Barton, Miss…" He trailed off as he squinted at her name badge that was slightly obscured by her hair.

The fun and intention to embarrass Donnie was gone as quickly as it had appeared. This woman was no Agent Alex Barton. Alex Barton was his daughter. And this woman was not his daughter.

Before he could think about protocol (which was all right some part of his mind supposed, since he was not Nick Fury), he had draw his standard issue pistol and locked it on her, his stance just as firm. “Hands up!” He shouted and as sure that every office and cubicle on that floor could hear him.

He tilted his head slightly to activate the comm link in his hearing aid. “Agent Barton reporting security breach on level F. Suspect is dangerous. Support needed.” He clicked off the comm. “On the fucking ground!” he jerked his chin towards her. “On the goddamn ground. Where did you get that ID? Where’s Agent Barton?” He wasn’t sure if the pounding he heard were the footsteps of the cavalry or his own heart.

There had already been an attempt on Liz’s life. To take a chance, to not assume the worst about her best friend and partner was not only naive but dangerous. And she was still his little girl. And no body touched his girls.

Sonya knew things had gone wrong before Clint did, and she tensed, ready for him to move on her. His draw was fast, and his voice was loud. She swore to herself. She moved a split second after he did, ducking to the left, throwing up her right arm to knock his arm aside. She rolled to the left as the natural finish to the motion, coming back to her feet with one hand on the ground, one leg extended to the right, the other bent beneath her.

She threw her weight forward, momentum of action as fluid as it could be. Her style was acrobatic and powerful; she didn't let her diminutive size factor into the fight, not when she was already in the air, one leg hooking around. The goal was to land on his shoulders, and ride him to the ground as her weight (slight, but still enough) overbalanced him and caused him to fall.

His questions annoyed her. Did he not keep tabs on his kid? Of course he jumped right to the worst possible conclusion. She hadn't done anything to Alex. Wouldn't, unless she had to. It wasn't some sick, misplaced longing for a sister, either; the kid was young and dumb, but she had good instincts. She'd make a great agent one day, even if she'd never be the kind of master that her parents were.

As she was learning firsthand.

#itsssafetoplayalong

there's a light in you

"That I’d ever had a sister." Alexandra said. She could see clearly the rising emotion in Sonya but didn’t - couldn’t - let her’s touch her voice. It would only escalate the situation since she sensed that no matter what she said it was not going to please her angry elder sister. "Natasha believed you died when your father told her so. She didn’t tell me about you. But she never said you were a mistake."

Alexandra stood to her full, if unimpressive, height. To her came some of the cold that Natasha was so famed for - that Clint used so effectively to think while the rest of the world was a battle field around him. “I’m not asking for a hug and an invitation to Sunday luncheon.” Yet. Despite the obvious unbalances her dear sister suffered from Alex had a good relationship with her family and wanted that with Sonya. Irrationally so.

"I owed you for what I said. I owed you because I say I owed you. And now I’m going to pay it back because I don’t like owing." Sonya could obviously be stubborn and prideful. That was ok because - quite unintentionally - Alexandra had picked up on the notion of balance that was so important to her mother. She didn’t like owing and wanted this off her ledger.

"I would expect nothing else." She said honestly. "You can come after me however you need to.” And as long as it was her name that hit the desk it was ok. Touch someone Alex cared for though and she’d show this woman a side of her that few had ever even glimpsed. A side of her capable of anything.

"So do we get this done? It will mean less time you have to deal with me which I’m sure you’d prefer. What’s the next step?"

"Next step?" Sonya was incredulous. This kid actually thought she was going to be in on this? That was ludicrous. Sonya worked alone. On the rare occasion when she didn't, she certainly didn't work with half fledged SHIELD agents. Even if a part of Sonya's mind had to admit that Alex had clearly been well trained, to take down the men who'd been after her.

Still, well trained didn't count for much when she didn't have the connections Sonya would need for this leg of the fight. She'd need to get into contact with Ben. Ben was a Hand assassin, he was the elite of the elite. They'd gone toe to toe before, no powers, and she'd found out that she didn't need to pull her punches with him like she did with others. Ben would probably be able to help her figure out who was on her trail.

"The next step is that you go home to your parents and your nice, safe organization. I'm going to have to get my hands dirty on this one, and I'm not holding your hand while I do it." she said stiffly. "I appreciate what you did for me here. But our debt is square."

She was angry, frustrated, and a little afraid. She hadn't realized she could still feel fear. Had her mother thought she was dead? Did her father? It wouldn't change anything. It couldn't. "One of us needs to walk away from this, and you're not really involved, yet. It needs to be you."

there's a light in you

Personal. That made it both less and more dangerous. Less because it was unlikely to be an organization. More so because attacks that were engaged because of personal reasons followed a logic only known to the attacker. They were harder to trace and often times impossible to anticipate. Except for the fact that they were unlikely to cease until one or the other were dead.

Their only chance was if they could find who was responsible and take the fight to them. Taking out the minions did little to dig out the root of this issue. “Reasonably well funded, and these might not be superstars but they were trained well enough to injure you. That makes them exceedingly dangerous. Especially since this was the advance team.” She didn’t need to say more. Sonya would know better than her that the advance team was rarely their top people. Her half sister’s question caught her off guard - though she should have been expecting it. Hadn’t she rehearsed this answer a half dozen times while Sonya was unconscious?

"I owed you." Alex said, her voice rougher than she would have liked. She cleared her throat and took a sip of tea. "What I said before, I didn’t know any better. But that wasn’t an excuse and I won’t make one. I owed you a kindness. Now I’m paying it back"

Sonya's eyes narrowed. "You didn't owe me anything." She didn't want to ask. Didn't want to make this... personal. "What didn't you know?" she challenged. It wasn't fair to push the girl, but the absolute last thing that she wanted to see in this... this child's eyes was pity. She wasn't a pitiful thing, her life had meaning and purpose. She had something to fight for.

She was angry now, and she hadn't wanted to let emotion come into the equation at all. That might have just made her angrier. She gritted her teeth, biting back on something darker and angrier still. "Please, tell me. What didn't you know, Barton? You didn't know about me at all? I doubt that she wanted to talk much about this mistake, did she?"

Dammit. She had a faint memory of her father smiling at her, laughing, saying that she had his temper. She certainly didn't have the ice cold calm that the Black Widow always boasted, not now. She stood up and stalked away from the table even as her body readjusted to rapid movement. She paused and turned to look at this girl who could have been her. "You better get it out of your head that we're anything but professionals, Barton. If a hit comes across my desk with your name on it, I'm not going to be pulling my punches." she warned.

A warning was more than anyone ever got from her. She was getting soft.

send me to a broken state

The hit had gone terribly wrong. Sonya didn't know what had possessed Ben to step in front of that bullet, but she knew that he'd taken that hit instead of the Stark girl, and she needed to figure out if he was alright. She had considered her options a handful of ways and times, but she couldn't deny that the draw of being possibly the only person who had even broken into the Helicarrier without being caught was, possibly, more interesting than even she could ever admit.

And Ben was on the Helicarrier. She knew that much was true.

So she ran the gamut. Getting on wasn't hard. It had to land to refuel more often than SHIELD wanted to admit. She came aboard with credentials that weren't as fake as they could be; it wasn't precisely her fault she'd stolen her half sister's identification, but it certainly wasn't her fault that the credentials were still active in the system and identified her as Agent Alexandra Barton.

She made a mental note to avoid anyone that might recognize her as certainly not Agent Barton, and started her way up to the detention level. Ben was being held in a chamber somewhere near the prisoner infirmary. He was stable, but they'd held him in a medical coma for almost a day, to give him time to heal. Probably before they made the choice to start torturing him for information.

That the Helicarrier was still in the air meant that they either didn't know precisely who he was (his file said that wasn't true) or they had neglected to contact his parents. Ben might not precisely get along with his parents, but they would tear this base apart to get him back if they got word that SHIELD was holding him. Better for SHIELD that not get out.

She made it to the detention level. A handful of men making their way towards them. She opted to play it cool, until one of them looked up and she felt her heart sink somewhere down around her ankles. Of all the people on the carrier for her to meet in a hallway. Agent Barton. Alex's father.

She could only desperately hope he didn't glance at her name badge and recognize that she was most certainly not his daughter.

there's a light in you

When the tea had seeped long enough Alex poured them both a glass then doctored her’s with honey and lemon. Boysenberry was a sweet tea and it didn’t take much to make it perfect. Oli and Liz had brought over a care package while she was here with Sonya filled with some of the clothes she had over at Liz’s and a few essentials such as this tea and her nook reader - wifi turned off of course. It had filled the hours while Sonya was asleep.

"If you’re back in the field, could it be your current job? The target, or…" Alex didn’t know how to bring the subject up delicately. That was Liz’s area. Even Oli was much better with people than she was. Since she couldn’t be delicate Alexandra went for her trademark blunt honesty. "Or your employers?"

She heard the challenge, and met Sonya’s eyes squarely. She wasn’t avoiding the subject or even dodging it. She and her sister were going to have that conversation. “That would be… complicated. There are external variables that have to be considered.” It brought a small smile to her face. Not a condescending one at all - her next statement wasn’t intended to be hurtful. No the smile was small and introspective.

"I spent half my weekends and summers at one of the Stark houses, watching Elizabeth blowing things up in her lab. Steve Rogers has been to every one of my birthday parties, and plenty of our holiday dinners as well. Bruce Banner is my Godfather, he has his own seat at the Thanksgiving dinner table. Thor brought me a bow from Asgarde. That’s not to mention the world’s two greatest, most motivated, spies gunning for them. Attacking me is… it brings a lot of attention. Immediate, negative, attention. They might not want that."

The kid was smarter than she looked, Sonya had to concede (mentally, only). Her points were sound enough, but Sonya still couldn't imagine that there was a dossier on her anywhere that was that thorough. Even her closest allies didn't know all her dirty little secrets. Had to be personal, then, nothing to do with Romanoff.

"Then it's nothing to do with Romanoff. There's a handful of people in the world who know what I am to her. I doubt any of them are trying to kill me." it was such a small possibility that she couldn't put stock in it. "Personal, then." she left it at that. She sipped at her tea, pleased with it, and found herself suddenly at a loss for what to say.

"So what do I owe you for this." she said finally.

there's a light in you

"Who would be stupid enough to try it?" Alex countered. "There are only a few organizations in the world who can give SHIELD any kind of a run for their money, and most of them have been quiet since the Avengers came to be." She paused thoughtfully then reconsidered. "Well. They’ve been quieter. Or smarter. Framing SHIELD is pretty stupid."

Alexandra pulled together the empty dishes, stacking the bowls and silverware and her empty cup. Sonya’s orange juice she left there as a silent command. It was sticky and sweet but it would help to replace some of the blood her sister had lost. Alex washed the dishes carefully and then stacked them in the dishwasher before she turned to the kettle warming itself on the stove. The microwave was quicker but Alexandra agreed with Clint and Natasha’s opinion that tea tasted better from the kettle.

She put together a tiny tea service, setting the tea to strain over boysenberry leaves and bringing the teapot and cups to the table. “There’s coffee but I don’t think it would set well with you yet. It’s boysenberry.” Natasha’s favorite, but Alexandra didn’t say that. Wasn’t sure how to bring that up yet. Didn’t want another fight.

"What’s happened recently that could have brought on this attack? Or do you think it was against SHIELD - possibly through Natasha?"

Sonya noticed that, of course, the orange juice was the only thing that her sister left on the table, but she perked up when she saw that she was making tea. Sonya loved tea, particularly fruity ones (as much as that made Ben gag to drink them). She had to concede that coffee would probably be a bit much on her system just then, but she didn't admit it aloud.

"Nothing recently. I've been relatively quiet." she admitted. "I had a month of downtime. I've only been back in the field for maybe two weeks." She had a theory, but that was chilling. It would be simple enough to burn her like this. No indication had come down the line that things were tense, but they wouldn't have warned her ahead of time.

The name caused her eyes to narrow slightly. "Wouldn't it make more sense to hit you if they were gunning for Romanoff?" she challenged.

there's a light in you

"The first." Alexandra agreed. She supposed the meal wasn’t too bad since it disappeared fairly quickly. While Natasha was not much of a cook Clint had been putting meals together for years and she remembered this recipe. Any time she’d been sick he’d made it for her. Since both he and Natasha seemed largely immune to the common cold she hadn’t had an opportunity to pay back the favor until Natasha had broken her arm once. A thirteen year old Alexandra had served her chicken noodle soup she made all by herself for two out of three meals.

She loved it, of course. Though grown up Alexandra understood better why her father had wanted to eat his fast food take out upstairs with Mama - and it wasn’t because she didn’t feel good.

Her parents were such brats.

"I had a friend take a look in S.H.I.E.L.D’s systems. She says that no operations involving you were approved, nothing in progress, nothing completed recently." Within the last few months anyway. Her darling sister was certainly on the radar and the watch list. Of course if they’d known her original parentage Alexandra felt sure that Fury would have told Natasha. Well. Reasonably sure. That was the problem with Fury.

"So who wants you enough to risk impersonating an organization like S.H.I.E.L.D? I knocked their sniper out but I’m sure she’s awake and reported by now. They’ll know you escaped." But not who helped her or where she might be. That Alex was fairly sure of. "It’s been three days. Is anyone going to be missing you?"

Is anyone going to be missing you?

Not intended to be a loaded question, but it gave Sonya a strange moment when she realized, not that she didn't have anyone who would be missing her, but that this girl did. It was strange to consider. Sonya had acquaintances, friends even. Jason. Ben. They were the closest thing she had to real connections in the world.

Neither one of them would bat an eye that she was gone for three days. She could be gone three months and they wouldn't question it. Her handler would wonder where she'd gone, and eventually she'd be declared dead or rogue, depending on how she disappeared. How long would she be dead before anyone noticed? That was a dark thought, and she didn't have the luxury to linger on it. "No." she said simply, as an answer.

"So impersonators after all. They seemed too sloppy for SHIELD, anyway." she mused. She finally relented and sipped at the orange juice, if only to just wet her throat which was dry and sticky. "I don't know who they were, then. I was fooled. Someone wanted to frame your organization for my murder. Seems a bit lofty. Who would benefit from that?"

hymn of the missing

hellfireshand-blog

Ben smirked at the comment about his mother, if anyone else had said that they would probably be doubled over and clutching at their temples right now but Sonya had earned that right.

"To be fair Dad was just as much of a slut, he was just a monogamy slut."

Ben thought again about this new sister, he really didn’t know what to think of her, she wasn’t at all what he expected. He also didn’t love the fact that she worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. To say that Ben and S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t see eye to eye was probably putting it mildly.

"I don’t know if I like her, it’s kind of too soon to tell. She is just so different to what I expected. I mean I was brought up to take pride in my mutation to see a Frost that is ashamed of hers is off-putting. You know I kind of want to put her in the same room as the Stepfords and see what happens."

Ben smiled at that thought, The Stepford Sisters were genetic clones of his mother and the only three survivors of thousands. They’d helped Ben out somewhat with his telepathy but he’d sort of fallen out of touch after Rachel disappeared. The fact that they hated Rachel could have something to do with that.

The thought of Nick Fury with a S.H.I.E.L.D. night light was an amusing one but Ben hated Fury so that could have something to do with it. He’d threatened Ben’s parents far too many times for Ben to have anything but derision for him.

The thought of more food was a pleasant one though, he was still pretty hungry and it was getting towards dinner time.

"Why don’t we go out? we’re rarely together like this anymore."

Going out to dinner? Well wasn't that novel. She didn't do that very often when she wasn't working, and it would be nice to not have to perform while she was at it. She looked down at herself and pinched her t-shirt between two fingers. "I'll need to change." she said decisively with a smirk. She unwound herself from her nest. "I won't take long." she promised.

She went into her room and peeled out of her relaxing clothes, and tossed them onto her bed. She'd wear them later to sleep, probably. Though if she played her cards right, maybe not. That was another thing she hadn't done in awhile not on the job. Might be a full night, then. That thought had her smiling as she looked in her closet. She had wardrobes full of clothes scattered all over safe houses all over the world. Any one of them was equipped to seduce a mark from a hundred paces.

She didn't need to be like that around Ben, though, and the dress she chose was tasteful and suited her personal taste more than her profession. She changed, stepped into the bathroom to do her hair (a messy looking style piled upon the back of her head, but actually artfully held together by bobby pins) and her makeup. A pair of heeled boots later, she was ready. When she emerged, it had been maybe twenty minutes.

"Ready?"

#hellfireshand

hymn of the missing

hellfireshand-blog

Ben was halfway through a bite of cracker and brie when Sonya mentioned a guy that was claiming to be Gambit’s son and he half choked. That didn’t make any kind of sense, he’d know if gambit had a son he knew about. Ben didn’t doubt the potential of an unknown son but that power set raised some red flags as well. That wasn’t the strangest thing though, all that power and he pulled out a gun.

"A gun? He pulled a gun on you? That doesn’t make any sense. I mean if an assassin broke into my apartment I wouldn’t be going for my kunai I’d be going straight for their mind."

Ben would need to investigate this further, but not right now. Ben would grab the guys location off her later and would work out what to do from there. This was have fun catching up with Sonya time, not worrying about random mutants time.

"Mine is actually on a similar tangent. Again a name you wouldn’t probably know ‘Anika Frost’. That’s right another half-sibling but that’s not the weirdest thing. she’s a mutant obviously, telekinetic and organic diamond form but she doesn’t embrace it she shies away from it. That’s not the worst part though. She works for S.H.I.E.L.D., my half-sister works for S.H.I.E.L.D. I can’t even imagine how mum would react if she knew that, she’s not even an agent she’s a researcher."

Ben still could not believe it, this woman was in no way what he thought a connection to his mother would be like. Though mum had destroyed pretty much the rest of her family so he was unlikely to get anyone else.

Sonya smirked when Ben explained about a half-sibling that he hadn't known about. "Well, to be fair, your mother was a little bit of a slut. I mean that with the utmost respect, of course." she said lightly. It wasn't the first time she'd said such things about Emma Frost. Ben knew she was-mostly-joking these days.

"A researcher? Not the kind of position I'd imagine any daughter of Emma Frost in." She smiled. "Do you like her?" Ben's ultimate goal was to find his half-sister, Rachel. Anika could potentially be a connection to his family that he so desperately wanted. They were so diametrically opposed in that way.

"Nick Fury doesn't like mutants, never has. They're a branch of supers that he can't control because they aren't predictable. Like me... the serum treatments I took as a kid made me a little shinier than most, but that's traceable. You're traceable, because of who your parents are. But Joe-shmo mutant on the street who suddenly develops the same talents as an atom bomb? That's scary. Even to me, that's scary, and I don't sleep with a SHIELD logo nightlight in my bedroom." she smirked.

Their plate was looking pretty bare, and that just wouldn't do. "Want to order something in? Thai or Chinese?"

#hellfireshand

there's a light in you

There were exactly two hints that she was no longer the only conscious woman in the house. Unsurprisingly one of them was the slight brush of a single footstep in the short hall that led from the medical room to the living room / kitchen area. Of course she was walking. What better way to test Alex’s stitches than to put them through a stress test. Because it was a safe house there were no obvious weapons left unsecured. If an agent needed to get an enemy off of the street while they waited for a SHIELD pick up they could and did utilize these houses. Alex had Clint’s training though and could recognize and utilize the fifteen items in these rooms that could be used as weapons. She had to assume Sonya could as well.

Because of that Alexandra had situated herself carefully for the time when Sonya’s medication would lower enough to let her reach consciousness. The chicken and rice soup she’d prepared was nourishing and Sonya’s bowl was probably cooled enough to eat by now. She’d already sliced the bread and buttered it, and there was a glass of orange juice to replace the lost sugar.

Alexandra marked the place in her book casually after Sonya’s entrance and placed it to the side of her plate. These days most of her books were on her tablet, or phone, or laptop… but the safehouse had a few actual books. Something to wile the hours away - or pass messages and hide things. They were generally classics but Alexandra didn’t object to a little Shakespeare when the Bard was literally her only viable option. Romeo and Juliet. How appropriate, considering her lackluster love life.

"It was the nearest safe place that had the supplies to take care of you." Alex answered, meeting Sonya’s eyes solidly. "As for how you ended up needing that care I think you can answer better than I could. Who were they?"

Sonya knew she was on shaky ground, and she was literally shaky. Her legs didn't feel strong enough to hold her for much longer. How long had she been out? If her legs had weakened this much, she'd either been out for days or she'd been significantly drugged. Or both. She'd ask later, or figure it out herself. She smelled that food, though, and it smelled good. Her stomach was very angry, and at this point she doubted that Alex would have spent all that effort in saving her life and nursing her back to health only to poison her.

She sat down at the table and looked at the meal. How very American of her. She gave a little shrug and dug in. It even tasted pretty good. That wasn't a skillset that Sonya possessed. Sonya could talk about cooking with a potential mark, but she didn't have the patience to learn how to actually do it. She ate a lot of take away.

When Alex asked about the circumstances of that fight, Sonya felt herself pause. "They were SHIELD. You should know that." she replied. But if she didn't... well one junior agent wouldn't be expected to know all of the faces in that multifaced organization. Ironically they were far more like a hydra than the organization who had taken that name.

Her bowl was empty faster than she would have liked. She eyed the orange juice as if it might turn into a cup of tea if she just concentrated on it hard enough. "So one of two things happened. Either they weren't actually SHIELD, or you're a rogue operative now." She gave the girl a light look. "I'm going to guess the first."

the more you turn away // jason

undertheredshroud

His shoulders loosened when she stopped him. Jason sat down at the table and drained his coffee. He pulled a crushed pack of cigarettes from his front pocket, focused on removing the cellophane wrapper, and lit one. He put the trash in the bottom of the mug and ashed once in it to stake his claim.

"I saw Bruce." He kept eye contact broken. "Probably for the last time in," he shrugged, "I dunno. A long time." He set his jaw, fell silent. The room waited for a moment. She scrapped a chair across the fake tile and sat across from him, put a hand on his. He wanted to tell her he appreciated it, thank you, but he knew himself, he knew he had his one chance to say it before it would be buried like so many other things.

"He didn’t want to see me. That was obvious. I thought that since, well, since then. He would have been able to think about it. I wasn’t going to ask him to choose. Not again. I could only take that once. I couldn’t hear it again. But, jesus Sonya, he made sure I knew his choice, again. He tried to lecture me. Tell me how he could help me. Help me! Can you believe that? He was going to try and fix me like all those goons he throws to that fucking rock in the harbor. He. He said he’d try and fix me. Make me better. This is who I fucking am, Bruce! You made me this. You let this fucking happen! And if you can’t deal with that? If you can’t look at me without disgust, without disappointment. Without fucking shame? Don’t even bother looking at all."

Jason threw his second butt in with force and shoved away from the table. He took the two plates Sonya had made and carried them over to the card table. He slid one to her and kept the other. He began to eat in silence.

With one egg down and one remaining, he looked, caught her eye. “Another coffee?”

She knew when they weren't talking about things, and when not to press. She disliked that about Jason; he wanted Bruce Wayne's approval, and he was unlikely to ever get it. They were diametrically opposed, ying and yang. Sonya understood what Jason never would: Bruce was afraid of Jason. Of what he was, what he could do, what Bruce was too much a coward to do.

Sonya understood that dealing death was sometimes the only option. She was the product of that eventuality.

When he offered her more coffee, she nodded and offered a quick, dry smile. "Might want to wash your cup first." She noted pointedly. She smoked on occasion, too, usually when she drank, but she didn't use her coffee mugs as ashtrays.

He made them more coffee, and she finished her plate and pushed it aside. She cradled the mug between her hands, gauging the mood. Something had changed, shifting the mood of the day to something... well, lighter wasn't the right way to describe it, but it was more comfortable somehow.

She wondered if he'd noticed the way she was favoring her left side. She was a good actress, even among those that she trusted. She wondered if she should tell him about her half-sister, about those strange revelations in that safe house in the woods. Probably not; she didn't just share these things. She was a tightly locked book of memories that no one, not even her, knew the full story of.

She finished her second cup of coffee and stood up. It only took a few moments to clean up their breakfast mess, and she left the dishes to dry in the drainer. She hesitated for a moment in the doorway to the kitchen, then smirked.

"You need a shower. You stink." She was smiling.

#undertheredshroud

the more you turn away // jason

undertheredshroud

"Creamy caramel creamer?" Jason laughed. "Look at you, lady. You might be giving someone the impression that we’re normal." He clapped his mouth shut and frowned as he turned away from her to her old refrigerator that hummed through the silence. "I’m sorry. You’re … we’re normal enough."

He pulled the bottle from the shelf and held it by its neck. He kept his gaze focused on his actions, pulling down two mugs (one had a chip in the handle), and spooning in sugar. She always took one less than he did. When he splashed the coffee in the mugs, the creamer went darker, darker, disappeared into the strong brew.

Jason slid hers closer and held onto his tightly. “Fried. Always.” He sucked down the hot liquid suddenly embarrassed. A regular boyfriend doesn’t smell like sulfur and gun oil. Didn’t ever needed to be sutured. Could speak openly about … any of it.

He idly moved a cheap banana shaped magnet end over end. “Seems like this city is working out well for you.” He was glad he wasn’t facing her. It was such a weak line he rolled his eyes at himself. “How long you been here? Three, four months?” He had little idea. The rent checks all blended together. The skylines all looked the same. “Working for yourself again, I hope?”

Jason turned back around and held the bridge of his nose and then held out a hand with splayed fingers. “You know what, let’s just … We can pretend this conversation didn’t happen. Try and talk about … things? Aw, fuck it.” He set the mug down and stepped over the kitchen tile into the carpeted living room. “I should just go.”

He prayed she wouldn’t let him. That she would wash the past way, with lye, with anything. Teach him how she did it.