Million Dollar Bills || Brie & Famine
July 5th, 2017 - morning.
After her interview with Dani yesterday, Carmen was, in a word, pooped. She was looking for a way to unwind and relax; that, for Carmen, usually meant two things: eating and shopping. She easily took care of the first when she woke up in the morning, taking her breakfast to her bedroom and devouring it in her room as well as a helping of seconds. When she was done with that, Carmen got dressed in her best business casual - a button-up and a skirt - since her constant effort to look good (for herself, only, though) was a habit ingrained in her since childhood. Going shopping wasn’t any exception to her substituting slacks or a skirt for jeans and a formal shirt for a tank top; that kind of wear was for more informal occasions.
Putting her sunglasses on her face, she strode purposefully from her bedroom, ignoring any Rogues that passed with her unreadable, tinted gaze, the weight on her shoulders lightening as she walked. God, this week had been hell - meetings with important executives from Coca Cola with her father in the room, meetings with important clients with her father in the room, meetings inside of the company with her father in the room. Being in the same room with her father, period. The thing about being a Horsemen and also being in a high position of power in a multimillion dollar advertising agency was that Carmen had to lay low yet stay high enough so that she didn’t lose her wealth. As a solution to keep her identity safe from the public, she continued her disguise of being a woman who had been affected by a skin disease since her teenage years that rendered her unable (and unwilling) to expose her face and hands to the outside. That was the clever ruse she and her parents had collaborated on (the only thing she would ever agree with them on) after she had stormed into their office after escaping from the Company. Carmen Rivera, from that point on, became a woman who had been sent overseas for treatment that maintained her condition for several years since she was eighteen; in 2012, she had returned to America to become a chief executive in Synadverts but only left her office to go in public with a visor and sunglasses hiding her face and gloves hiding her (supposedly horrendous) hands. In reality, she just didn’t want Nexus arresting her, and anybody getting to see her rings would have a clear image of who she was if they also saw her face. However dangerous it was for her to blatantly wear the Four Horsemen as symbols on her hand, Carmen didn’t care; she’d risk her safety in public for expression in private any day.
Her heels clicked against the cement as she entered the garage and stopped in front of the car parked right beside her Mustang - the one she believed to belong to their residential Bonnie and Clyde, if she was correct. Carmen peered inside, a lock of hair falling in her vision, and huffed as she brushed it aside before she knocked quite loudly on the window. Her gloves weren’t on her hand yet, so her rings were completely uncovered to rap against the glass. As the window rolled down, she pointed at Brie, beckoning her with a finger, “We’re going shopping.” There it was, simple as that - an impulsive order just because she didn’t want to go relax in solitary. Of course, Carmen valued her independence, but sometimes, she didn’t always want alone time.
Not waiting for Brie to ask questions, she unlocked the doors of her Mustang, sliding smoothly into the driver’s seat and taking the time it took Brie to switch cars to put her gloves on and effectively cover up her rings. As Brie finally took her place in the passenger seat, Carmen started the engine and clicked the remote for the garage’s door, quickly reversing out of the parking space and closing the door afterward. She didn’t say anything until they were well away from the mansion and on the road leading into the city, “So, anything you want today is yours.” It wasn’t any type of favoritism, honestly, for Carmen; she would’ve done the same for Gavin or Dani or Rae or even Christopher (as much as she hated to admit it) or anyone who was closest when she was walking to her car, really. She treated all of the Rogues the same, and when she was bored and wanted to indulge with someone else around, that was what would happen. “Are you hungry, Brie? Did you have breakfast yet?” Carmen steered carelessly, with only her left hand on the wheel and her right elbow propped up on the console between the driver’s seat and the passenger’s, but she drove carefully - or as carefully as possible in the daytime. At night and after midnight, however, she preferred to speed. Maybe that was during the day, too. Not with another passenger in the car, though - Carmen would never endanger someone else with her bad habits. For that reason, she lowered her pressure on the accelerator as they entered real New York traffic. Her left hand gripped the steering wheel loosely, prepared to take a turn anywhere to the nearest restaurant she remembered if Brie answered that she was indeed hungry.
Brie was, for most intensive purposes, a lazy person. In junior high and high school she had never been into extra curricular activities, favoring the chance to hang under the bleachers with a book in hand than stepping off them and vaulting into play. In freshman year her parents, concerned their daughter was loosing grip on the good things in life, forced her to go out for volleyball tryouts. She only got on the team because there were no cuts. The first (and only) practice she went to, she touched the ball a total of five times. Exercise bored her; she never got an athletic high from running around, throwing a ball over a net or into a hoop. Sports were trivial and a waste of time. And she never exercised to balance her weight out. She had a small appetite and a fast metabolism. Every volleyball practice after the first she skipped, lying to her parents at dinner time where she had been after school (in truth, either reading or at Danny's). The charade lasted for quite a few months. Then the volleyball coach called up her parents, asking if Brie had suffered an injury and therefore couldn't come to practice. Brie was grounded for a month. Upset with her parents and her school, she pulled a few disappearance stunts, hiding out in Danny's basement or taking the family tent and camping out in the woods. Brigid and Ivan, terrified for their daughter's safety, made a conscious decision to attempt not to push Brie into anything she didn't want. She didn't participate in any physical activity (other than the occasional run from the cops) after the volleyball incident. That is, until she started training. A few months into training with Natsumi, she started noticing the physical changes to her body. Her thin arms had curved definition; her legs, which usually burned after five minutes of running, ached for more exercise even after an exhausting two hour workout; even her face, when she looked in the mirror, looked more angular, more mature. She wouldn't admit it, but she sort of liked the new her. No one was pushing her to do anything. She did this for herself and for Danny, because she was tired of the close calls and the near misses. Her shoulder, scarred from the stab wound, was evidence of her previous carelessness. A few inches to the left and it could have punctured her lung. Clyde would have lost Bonnie, and then lost himself to fever. Brie could still be rebellious -- she'd never lose that part of herself, no matter how much she trained or how meticulously she planned -- and one step ahead of whomever wanted to hurt her.
Last night's session had conked her out; she fell asleep at eight o'clock, long before Danny returned with dinner. When Carmen woke her up that morning, tapping on the cheap glass window of the station wagon, her stomach felt as if it was eating itself to compensate for the lack of food inside it. Blinking the sleep out of her eyes, and rubbing her stomach to calm it down, Brie used her fingers to brush her straight blonde hair from the mess it had become while she was sleeping. Quietly and gently, as in the mornings she woke up before Danny, Brie kissed his cheek and rearranged the blankets she tossed off herself onto him. On the window across from his head, she blew hot breath onto the window, fogging up the glass. She wrote 'Gone out. xx' on the cloud. He would know what to do; they usually left each other messages on that pane. All you had to do was breathe on the glass, and the message would come back mostly clear. Brie rolled down the window, seeing her haphazard reflection in Carmen's dark sunglasses. She didn't have time to respond to the order, because Carmen turned her back and began loading into the shiny silver Mustang parked next to the station wagon. Brie muttered nonsensically to herself, then yawned silently, stretching her arms above her head, hands palming the car's soft top surface. Her muscles gave her a dull, sweet ache. Natsumi would want to practice tonight. She wasn't sure if she could handle it, but she knew Nat wouldn't care if she could or couldn't go on. That was one of the reasons she admired the Rogue. Stripping herself of her work out shirt (she hadn't changed out of it last night -- too tired) and pulling a loose black tank top over her head and her only pair of shorts onto her skinny hips, Brie yawned and exited the station wagon, slipping into the passenger seat of Carmen's car and slumping tiredly. Just another one of those days. Squinting in the bright summer morning light, she drew a hand over her face and stretched again, this time pointing her toes and opening up a whole new source of aching pain in her legs.
She didn't know Carmen too well. Famine was one of her bosses, yes, but she knew her surrounding officers a bit better than she knew the Horsemen. Maia was nice, Christopher a kind of friend, Natsumi her trainer, Gavin her landlord. Knowing the Horsemen probably came with being better at her job, which she knew was coming soon. Once she got a good grasp on her powers, she'd be able to do harder missions. Then she would rack up enough money to get her and Danny out of Gavin's garage. Maybe they would get a small place near the HQ. She wasn't sure; living in a car wasn't luxury, but at least it still felt and smelt like the home she used to live in. "Hah, okay," Brie responded, rolling her shoulders into the back of her seat. She played with the ends of her hair, rocking back and forth as Carmen took sharp turns, speeding through the bustling New York morning. She almost didn't believe Carmen was telling the truth; sure, she had heard of Famine's joyrides, how she would take Rogues to Fifth Avenue and indulge their every craving. As much as Brie liked stuff, she knew most expensive things she would end up selling or mucking up. But the mention of food made her stomach jump and grumble. Biting her lip and lowering the window to breathe in the odd smells of New York (which only made her stomach twist more), Brie nodded. "Yeah, guess so." Making it casual took out the urgency. She didn't want Carmen to think she was a charity case.
