[ Root gets settled in Etraya, takes some time to reacquaint herself with Shaw and Harry and even the big lug, makes sure she introduces herself to the resident A.I. and ask a series of pertinent questions. Of course she trusts Harry's judgment, but if she's going to be freely talking to whoever contacts her, Root isn't going to turn up the opportunity.
After a few days she moves onto introducing herself to their more extended circle of contacts, and Carver comes up quickly. Shaw brought a friend home, huh? That's so cute. She has to get to know him.
She's actually not thinking that as she goes down into the subway hideout, though. She has no idea he's living here and was just morbidly curious about finding a very familiar vending machine. If it's here, she might as well pick up some things of hers... black nail polish, a taser, you know. Whatever she'd left behind. She definitely wants the bunny slippers.
But she's not an idiot, so she has a gun held comfortably in her hands as she trots down the final stairway. ]
[ It’s not his place, Carver knows, not entirely. Harold’s crew all know the code and there’s no way to change or prevent them from sharing it with anyone else. Even so, it’s safer than the alternative and Carver set to work immediately to trap the fuck out of the place. He doesn’t have access to land mines or much in the way of gunpowder, but he laid out tripwires and several bell traps.
The bells are harmless. The tripwires aren’t. And it occurs to him only after he hears the metal drag of the vending machine opening that he didn’t actually tell anyone he’d set them.
So, that might be a problem.
He draws his one and only pistol, hurrying up the stairs. ]
[ Root stops where she is obediently, her pistol held loosely and pointed down, and she gazes down the stairs at Carver. She tilts her head a little. ]
Shaw didn't tell me she put you up in here, [ she says with palpable interest. Of course she knows what he looks like by now; she'd hardly been sitting around for the past few days. ] She must really like you.
[ Carver gives her a narrow look, assessing. There aren’t many people that Shaw would tell about him, far as Carver knows. At first blush, this woman doesn’t read as a threat. She’s small, slight. But the way she stands and watches him in turn says things as well. ]
You’re Shaw’s girl, huh?
[ That’s not how Shaw described the person who became her center, the woman who remade herself under an AI’s teaching. But he throws it out blandly to provoke a reaction, see what it gets him. ]
Don’t step on the tripwire. I’m not in the mood to clean you off the stairs.
Root assumes she's dead at first. There's quite a few reasons to draw this conclusion: her clothes are bloody but the wounds under them are closed up, scarring nicely already; the sky is cascading colors across the night, not just an aurora but a whole spectacle of the universe; and she's stuck in a frozen hellscape with the wind whistling past her. She finds Bear just as her fingertips start to fully freeze and the two things together convince her she is not, in fact, dead, or at least not in any way that matters.
She spends the next few days getting to grips with her surroundings, thankful she has Bear to talk to as she keeps up an occasional murmured stream of chatter. Root is a city girl but she grew up in a small town and she knows at least a few things. She has a knife and that lovely tactical shotgun she'd stolen off the police officer ages ago, though she quickly realizes she's going to need to conserve ammo, bad.
There's a tiny cabin nearby that's structurally sound enough to provide protection from the weather, and Root makes that her temporary base of operations as she scrounges around the area for supplies. She gets some better clothing for herself -- looking fairly comical bundled up in all these men's layers, but it keeps her alive, four pairs of socks on to make her feet fit into the work boots she found -- and she used her knife to cut up a the outer shell of a half-destroyed parka. She took the strips and some duct tape and made little booties for Bear. She has to make new ones every couple days, but his poor little paws need protection from the snow and ice.
Her cochlear implant isn't working the whole time. More than once she's intensely grateful to have Bear, who has far more acute hearing than her even when both of her ears are working, and warns her of nearby threats. His presence seems to act as a decent deterrent to the wolves, too, at least for now. As the light show in the sky starts to settle, though, her implant crackles back to life, making her wince in surprise. Some quick math makes Root realize how much she needs to conserve its battery life even more than the ammo, so with some reluctance she turns it off shortly after it becomes active.
Eventually she feels well equipped enough to leave her temporary base, and she suits up herself and Bear -- who's wearing a child's tattered down vest as well as his makeshift booties -- as she heads out, shotgun at the ready. It's slow going through the snow, and she really has no idea where she's going or where there even is to go to, but she can't stay here forever. There's very little food, for one thing.
She can't believe she was grateful to find a can of beans yesterday.
Root muses on her devastatingly low current standards and the theological nature of purgatory as she tromps through the snow drifts, and then Bear starts to bark and she springs into alertness, lifting the gun cautiously.
She knows that bark, and as soon as she hears it, she's sure that it's a trick of the woods - and though that suspicion isn't in any way dispelled by seeing him in the flesh just a few seconds after she hears him, that doesn't stop her from dropping to her knees and opening her arms, inviting him to bound right into them.
"Hey, buddy," she murmurs, rubbing his ears and nuzzling her frost-nipped nose into his fur. "Where'd you come from, huh?"
His saliva freezes to her face where he licks her cheek, and she does not fucking care. Bear.
More human-sized footsteps sound off in the woods to her left, boots crunching on snow and fallen branches, and she looks up - not immediately suspecting danger (it hadn't sounded nearly large enough to be the other bear), but alert regardless.
Root trusts that Bear would be acting a lot differently if it were a threat, so she lowers her gun and trudges her way through the snow and past some trees until she sees Shaw.
Oh. Of course Bear ran off.
"Sameen," she breathes, aware she looks like a minor disaster and not caring. She's all haphazard layers of moth-eaten men's clothes and her hair is messily pushed into a toque, she's stepping a little unsteadily in her borrowed shoes, and her face is flushed with cold sweat from the exertion. But her eyes are wide as the realization sinks in and then she starts to laugh in joyous incredulity.
The emotions are pushing up and crowding her, but Root passes them off with her usual flippancy.
"Maybe this is Dante's ninth circle of hell after all. With Bear here I thought it couldn't be, but seeing you, I'm starting to reconsider."
Of course Root has the capacity to make quippy little jokes right now. Shaw, on the other hand, has to settle for gaping in mute shock, fingers still curled in Bear's fur. She's of course known for a while that people from home popping up was a possibility, even if she's been conflicted on whether or not it's something to properly hope for. But Root, Root who'd died--
In a place filled with impossible possibilities, that's an entirely new layer to grapple with.
"You aren't real," she says, because after everything she's seen, of course she has to consider the idea (over and over and over again). But even as she says it, she's pulling herself to her feet and walking towards her.
[ Let's say they're having a post-mission drink together. It's all very civil, sitting down in Carver's boobytrapped version of the subway station, pulled up on scavenged furniture around a scavenged table, bottle of decent but not great whiskey set up with shot glasses. Root is nursing hers rather than shooting -- it's just the glasses they have on hand -- and leaning back with all the leisurely satisfaction of a cat who did what they wanted and ignored all shouts to the contrary.
It was a good mission. They achieved their objectives and they worked well together, and watching Carver and Shaw relax afterwards like they don't have any other post-mission plans makes Root feel like now's the right time. It's not reckless; it's not impulsive.
She's been waiting. ]
So have you two done it yet? [ Maybe they were talking about something else, but now they're not. Root sounds interested, amused; she doesn't assume Shaw shares everything with her, wouldn't expect her to. ] Because I could cut this sexual tension with a knife.
[ He spent too much time in the infantry to spit his drink out when Root says that, but it sure does snap the conversation to a halt. They were just shooting the shit, not talking about anything important. Post-op comedown, the sort of thing he'd do with Leah and the others after a job back home. Or a raid after the world ended. He's nursing some bruises but nothing serious, nothing worth remembering once they fade. The alcohol's welcome, a reward for survival. And the company's good.
Little by little, day by day, he's found patterns with all of them. They make sense, this group. He has a place inside it.
Still, Carver's eyebrows go up. He lowers his glass. ]
[Shaw also does not spit-take: she just slooooooowly swivels her head to face Root, a very clear Why are you like this expression on her face.]
We are.
[But she says it like it's an aside; like the fact that they're together is completely irrelevant to the question that's just been posed. Exclusivity is not something that they've ever discussed, or even hinted at discussing, and somewhere along the line that lack of discussion had started to feel like a deliberate choice rather than an oversight. Shaw knows where she stands on the issue (she's capable of exclusivity, especially with someone who keeps her on her toes as much as Root does, but she also doesn't feel the need for it), and she trusts that if Root felt any particular way about it, she would have brought it up by now. So. They're together, and they'd still be just as together even if Shaw had fucked Carver.
Which she very emphatically has not.]
Sorry about her. I guess she's not holding the social skills ball today.
Don't be a stick in the mud, you know that ball is in my permanent possession.
[ There's a bit of a drawl to her tone, though, and a smirk to her lips. She knows exactly what she's doing; it's not lack of social skills at play here. And true to Shaw's thinking, the omission on discussing exclusivity was because Root didn't care in the slightest. She's not easily threatened that way. Sex is just an expression of physicality, and ultimately physical forms are ephemeral, easily betrayed, scarcely tangible. Nothing that truly matters happens in the physical realm; it's just for fun.
Case in point, she can tell there's something here, and maybe it's not happening in deference to her, which just means she's in the best possible position to stir up trouble. And give Shaw something she wants at she same time -- win/win. ]
I'll take that as a no. [ She slings one leg over the other, casual. ] Seems like a missed opportunity to me.
[ Root is a good enough hacker that almost no one knows she exists, and those that do know were willing to pay a premium price for her services when they were for sale. So there's really no call to have this meeting in person, except she's curious, and still debating whether she wants to go along on this job herself. With the life she leads, she figures she doesn't have a lot of years left until she dies somehow, and that sharpness lends a clarity of purpose that makes her utterly unflinching.
Die now, die tomorrow, die next year -- who cares, as long as she makes sure it's worth something. She wants to enjoy what time she has.
She's not going to pass up an opportunity to meet Deadpool. His whole reputation is ludicrous and wildly conflicting. Having access to dark web conversations just makes the whole thing even more confusing, because it's not like they're reliable sources, and they often contradict one another -- and the Machine, who of course knows everything there is to know about everything, doesn't give her info just for the hell of it. She's meticulous in her ethics that way, Root thinks fondly. Like father, like daughter. No, the Machine gives her just enough to do what she needs to do and nothing more.
So here's Root swanning into a dive bar like she owns the place. She'd given him a location and time to meet and said she'd find him, but nothing more. She's a tall spindly woman in fashionable yet unremarkable black, and she has two pistols tucked into the small of her back under her jacket, a knife handle sticking out of her boot, and a cochlear implant subtly visible through her hair over her right ear.
There's a bright, interested air about her like she's going on a fun jaunt, and she strides right up to Deadpool without an ounce of hesitation. ]
Are we having a drink first or right to business?
[ She's down with either one, but she's at least going to ask -- Root is highly social but also hates most of humanity, meaning when she comes across a novelty she just wants to dig in. ]
[It’s not completely unheard of for a client to request to meet in person, but it’s not necessarily typical either. The type of clients that Wade attracts (people with special needs) garner a certain level of discretion by nature. He’s sometimes done entire jobs without ever seeing a client’s face or even knowing their real name. Risky, yes, but the payoff is usually proportional.
Wade is admittedly more particular about the jobs he takes these days than he’s been in the past. There are reasons for that. Nothing’s ever completely off the table though.
New York City is one of Wade’s old haunts. Even if he doesn’t live here anymore, he finds himself drawn back often. He’s already built up a reputation here, for one. It’s also the territory of several people of interest— heroes, villains, goons, you name it. He’s familiar with the little dive bar his client pinned as their meeting point, and he’s actually a little glad to settle into a dim corner and wait. There aren’t many bars that accommodate guests like him, and thankfully this is one of them.
The woman that eventually approaches him is beautiful, yes— Wade has eyes and they work, thank you very much— but she’s also got an air of confidence that piques his interest.]
Hey, sweetheart. Not that I think just anyone’s gonna come strolling up to a heavily armed masked man sitting in a dark corner alone— kinda cliché, now I think about it— but you mind identifying yourself first? Think of it as a formality.
[He cocks his head slightly, clearly taking notice of the pistols she’s packing herself.]
Then I’ll buy you a drink, promise. Got my customer service face on and everything.
[ Root's never really lived in New York City, but she keeps coming back here, too. At first just because it's a population nexus, so there's a lot of jobs here and it's a convenient place to get lost in and restock -- but now because Harold is here, and that also means Shaw is here, and Root has to stop back in and check on her people every so often.
It's strange, having people. Strange and precious, something she'd walk off a roof rather than betray.
Her confidence isn't arrogance; it's someone who knows exactly who they are, where they're going, and what they're willing to do to get there. Root isn't fearless, she's determined. And she's determined she's going to follow the Machine to the end of her days. The Machine wants her here right now, so she's here. That the Machine approved this meeting also means the Machine thinks Deadpool wouldn't really be a threat to her at the moment, whatever his reputation.
And isn't that interesting?
She gives an easy smile that has the same insouciant edge as batting her eyelashes would. ] Most people aren't any fun that way, it's true. I'm Root. [ She'd identified herself that way online when reaching out to hire him, and she has a reputation of her own inasmuch as no one anywhere is willing to admit to knowing who she is. One of her personal costs of doing business. ]
Make it something with whiskey.
[ And she sits herself down at his table, apparently content to let him handle ordering, buying, and waiting on her. ]
[Identity checks out, so Wade doesn’t protest when she slides into the seat adjacent to him at the table. He’s not sure he would have regardless. Again, she’s interesting— enough that he likely would have entertained her even if she had nothing to do with the job. He’s maybe a little too enthusiastic when he waves someone down to bring them some drinks.
He does order himself something too. The alcohol doesn’t really do much for him, but there’s a social aspect to it, especially when dealing with clients. Wade leans forward in his seat, clearly broadcasting his interest.]
Okay, Root. Not often I get these kind of calls, so this is a novelty. But I totally get it. [A little hand wave here.] Curiosity got the better of you? Couldn’t resist meeting the man, the myth, the legend in person? I am pretty popular these days. Sorry, no autographs at this time.
[He’s ordered himself a heavy-handed cocktail and stirs it with the straw a bit when it’s placed in front of him. He doesn’t lift his mask any to drink just yet.]
Unless you’ve got another reason? [Just a light probing.]
[ It is sometimes difficult to tell if Clea's atelier is a workshop or a terrarium, hot and humid as it is. The reason can be found in the gigantic glass enclosure that wraps around two walls of the room, full of tropical plants, logs, and caves as well as one very large boa constrictor. A few smaller enclosures can be found on the opposite wall. ]
Shoes, s'il vous plait.
[ She reminds the other woman with a gentle chide, not looking up from where she's sitting at a vintage hardwood desk, sorting through the photography from her recent trip to the Amazon. Most of the photographs have been placed in the 'lacking' pile, but there are a small number of which Clea approves. She holds a photograph of a small brightly colored frog up above her head, examining it with a frown, going back and forth on its merits.
If she must question, it is a no.
She adds the photograph to the pile of rejects and finally turns to give her 'guest' her full attention.
There are few people Clea allows in her atelier out of a desire to preserve her privacy, but she is one of them. If one wishes to acquire interesting goods, one must make interesting friends, and the best way to ingratiate oneself is to provide services. The jobs provide a suitable challenge and a network which is unburdened by questions of legality, though Clea prefers to keep herself away from the messier side of that world: she's not trying to end up bleeding out in an alley like a common thug. ]
It's been a long time. I was beginning to think you'd become banal - acquired a husband, children, and a golden retriever. Please do not ask for a donation to a children's school.
[ Her voice has a teasing lilt to it, as the notion is ridiculous. ]
What name are we using today, madame?
[ It is fascinating how the other woman so readily inhabits her personae. Clea has never had a talent for acting or disappearing; she is too much herself. Yet this woman is an actress par excellence of the deepest sort, entirely subsuming herself and yet never being lost. ]
For you, chérie, just Root today. If that isn't too prosaic.
[ She does have a fake identity she's working under currently, of course, but it doesn't matter. Root is here on the Machine's orders, specifically as herself -- which is interesting. It's almost like a personal gift if she didn't know better. Root loves puzzles, and excuses to see people she likes -- and she hasn't had much downtime since she decided to follow the Machine. Not that she's complaining (never) but she is, unfortunately, a flesh and blood human who can't go on endlessly.
She's sure this little assignment isn't solely for her benefit, though she does think that might be a secondary motive. The Machine doesn't play matchmaker for her agents' primate social needs, not past that one time when she was young and she introduced Harold to Grace. No, the Machine never tells her much, and in this case it was even more minimal than normal: visit Clea. Someone she hasn't seen in years but has thought about quite a few times since. It's rare that Root clicks on a personal level with someone, and when she does, she latches on. Not tightly -- she's like a cat, always leaving to do her own things but coming back routinely for treats and attention -- but assuredly, leaving no question of her attachment.
Root pauses momentarily to kick off her three inch heels as directed, leaving her in sheer black pantyhose and an understated color-block dress, hair artfully tousled in a chignon. She could be any well-dressed professional Frenchwoman wandering in off the street.
Leaving the shoes carelessly to the side, she pads over in stocking feet to examine the pile of pictures, head tilting to orient them better. A smaller, more honest smile finds its way onto her face. ]
These are the rejects, right? [ she asks, taking a guess. ] Can I have one?
[ Though she would never admit to anything so gauche, Clea does feel a sense of pleasure at the address: Root has never struck her as the sort of woman to bandy about endearments. Clea watches Root approach with interest, looking her up and down to appraise today's presentation. It stands in contrast with Clea's own, as the artist had intended to devote the entirety of the day to working and had dressed accordingly in flowing, impeccably tailored linens allowing for freedom of movement, shirt sleeves rolled up past her forearms and hair tied back in a braid.
Clea's grey eyes flicker over to Root. She wonders what the purpose is of Root's visit: It has been some time since she's requested any of Clea's services. ]
If you insist, though you deserve better.
[ Why she would want one from the rejects, Clea isn't certain. The photographs Root sees all look like they could easily belong in a nature photo exhibition - photographs of exotic flora and fauna both - but in each Clea has identified what she's determined is a glaring flaw.
Clea draws out a photograph from the much thinner pile of those that had met her standards and passes it over to Root for inspection: A large white bellied Caiman alligator in the midst of preying on an anaconda, mouth having just clamped down on the doomed snake. The two animals are framed by lush green leaves and bright blooms - a multilayered photograph Clea had painstakingly developed in the old way in a darkroom.
It's a much more interesting piece than the ones Root is considering. ]
[ Root says plenty of things she doesn't mean -- she lies constantly, from her name to her accent to her personal investment in someone -- but if she's here today as Root, that means she's not here to lie. She knows how to interpret it when the Machine gives an instruction like that.
Which means the term of endearment is perfectly genuine and not flippant, and Clea's insistence that Root deserves better provokes an amused widening of her smile. ]
It's hard for me to hold onto material objects these days, so I didn't want to take any of your good ones, [ she explains, which is perfectly true. ] But I can still appreciate them.
[ She examines the one Clea is silently suggesting. ]
I like it. Comforting to think you haven't changed much, either.
[ It doesn't take long after he arrives for Root to come visiting and introduce herself. Harold gave her some warnings, which just makes her more curious. She also knows Carver enough at this point to have certain expectations formed, and she wants to see how right her hypotheses are. (Carver has probably given Bossie some warnings about her, for that matter. He'd be silly not to, and he did not seem silly.)
She comes swanning up to the subway entrance and stops in front of the vending machine. She stares unerringly and acutely directly into the surveillance camera. ]
Knock knock, [ she says brightly.
Root is a slender woman on the taller side dressed in a cutesy cotton summer dress. Her hair is perfectly curled into artful tumbles and she has a discreet little purse just large enough to contain a Taser, a handgun, and the secondary network device Harold had put together. A girl always needs the essentials. ]
[ That makes her smile widen, eyes returning to the road as she follows the GPS to the next off-ramp. ]
That's the spirit. We're stopping for gas -- you'll have to stay in the car, but I'll grab you a snack. And that coffee.
Any requests?
[ Another little choice, a light push to get him used to thinking about making his own decisions.
They're in upstate New York in a heavily wooded rural area, the isolation convenient for the research facility. It's too dark to see much at the moment, but the trees are sprayed with color as the leaves turn for the winter, and the road winds beside the craggy cliffs of old mountains. They're going to be driving for hours to make it back to the city, and Root is certain there's a detour with a good view that the Machine can find, even if it will be in the middle of the night. ]
[Accelerator frowns faintly at having to stay in the car, but he understands why and doesn't argue. Besides, seeing so much outdoors is still pretty overwhelming to him, so staying in an enclosed space separated from all that nature is probably a good thing.]
I don't know. [He, sadly, does not have a lot of experience with gas station snacks, though he still takes Root's question seriously and thinks for a few moments.] Anything that goes with coffee.
[That seems like a safe bet, and after everything that just happened he could use something to eat.]
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for carver (etraya)
After a few days she moves onto introducing herself to their more extended circle of contacts, and Carver comes up quickly. Shaw brought a friend home, huh? That's so cute. She has to get to know him.
She's actually not thinking that as she goes down into the subway hideout, though. She has no idea he's living here and was just morbidly curious about finding a very familiar vending machine. If it's here, she might as well pick up some things of hers... black nail polish, a taser, you know. Whatever she'd left behind. She definitely wants the bunny slippers.
But she's not an idiot, so she has a gun held comfortably in her hands as she trots down the final stairway. ]
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The bells are harmless. The tripwires aren’t. And it occurs to him only after he hears the metal drag of the vending machine opening that he didn’t actually tell anyone he’d set them.
So, that might be a problem.
He draws his one and only pistol, hurrying up the stairs. ]
Don’t fucking move.
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Shaw didn't tell me she put you up in here, [ she says with palpable interest. Of course she knows what he looks like by now; she'd hardly been sitting around for the past few days. ] She must really like you.
Carver, right?
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You’re Shaw’s girl, huh?
[ That’s not how Shaw described the person who became her center, the woman who remade herself under an AI’s teaching. But he throws it out blandly to provoke a reaction, see what it gets him. ]
Don’t step on the tripwire. I’m not in the mood to clean you off the stairs.
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Cw homophobia mention
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for shaw (singillatim)
She spends the next few days getting to grips with her surroundings, thankful she has Bear to talk to as she keeps up an occasional murmured stream of chatter. Root is a city girl but she grew up in a small town and she knows at least a few things. She has a knife and that lovely tactical shotgun she'd stolen off the police officer ages ago, though she quickly realizes she's going to need to conserve ammo, bad.
There's a tiny cabin nearby that's structurally sound enough to provide protection from the weather, and Root makes that her temporary base of operations as she scrounges around the area for supplies. She gets some better clothing for herself -- looking fairly comical bundled up in all these men's layers, but it keeps her alive, four pairs of socks on to make her feet fit into the work boots she found -- and she used her knife to cut up a the outer shell of a half-destroyed parka. She took the strips and some duct tape and made little booties for Bear. She has to make new ones every couple days, but his poor little paws need protection from the snow and ice.
Her cochlear implant isn't working the whole time. More than once she's intensely grateful to have Bear, who has far more acute hearing than her even when both of her ears are working, and warns her of nearby threats. His presence seems to act as a decent deterrent to the wolves, too, at least for now. As the light show in the sky starts to settle, though, her implant crackles back to life, making her wince in surprise. Some quick math makes Root realize how much she needs to conserve its battery life even more than the ammo, so with some reluctance she turns it off shortly after it becomes active.
Eventually she feels well equipped enough to leave her temporary base, and she suits up herself and Bear -- who's wearing a child's tattered down vest as well as his makeshift booties -- as she heads out, shotgun at the ready. It's slow going through the snow, and she really has no idea where she's going or where there even is to go to, but she can't stay here forever. There's very little food, for one thing.
She can't believe she was grateful to find a can of beans yesterday.
Root muses on her devastatingly low current standards and the theological nature of purgatory as she tromps through the snow drifts, and then Bear starts to bark and she springs into alertness, lifting the gun cautiously.
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"Hey, buddy," she murmurs, rubbing his ears and nuzzling her frost-nipped nose into his fur. "Where'd you come from, huh?"
His saliva freezes to her face where he licks her cheek, and she does not fucking care. Bear.
More human-sized footsteps sound off in the woods to her left, boots crunching on snow and fallen branches, and she looks up - not immediately suspecting danger (it hadn't sounded nearly large enough to be the other bear), but alert regardless.
"Hey, who's out there?"
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Oh. Of course Bear ran off.
"Sameen," she breathes, aware she looks like a minor disaster and not caring. She's all haphazard layers of moth-eaten men's clothes and her hair is messily pushed into a toque, she's stepping a little unsteadily in her borrowed shoes, and her face is flushed with cold sweat from the exertion. But her eyes are wide as the realization sinks in and then she starts to laugh in joyous incredulity.
The emotions are pushing up and crowding her, but Root passes them off with her usual flippancy.
"Maybe this is Dante's ninth circle of hell after all. With Bear here I thought it couldn't be, but seeing you, I'm starting to reconsider."
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In a place filled with impossible possibilities, that's an entirely new layer to grapple with.
"You aren't real," she says, because after everything she's seen, of course she has to consider the idea (over and over and over again). But even as she says it, she's pulling herself to her feet and walking towards her.
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my bad, I missed this!
no worries!
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for carver & shaw (etraya)
It was a good mission. They achieved their objectives and they worked well together, and watching Carver and Shaw relax afterwards like they don't have any other post-mission plans makes Root feel like now's the right time. It's not reckless; it's not impulsive.
She's been waiting. ]
So have you two done it yet? [ Maybe they were talking about something else, but now they're not. Root sounds interested, amused; she doesn't assume Shaw shares everything with her, wouldn't expect her to. ] Because I could cut this sexual tension with a knife.
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Little by little, day by day, he's found patterns with all of them. They make sense, this group. He has a place inside it.
Still, Carver's eyebrows go up. He lowers his glass. ]
Thought you two were together, [ he drawls. ]
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We are.
[But she says it like it's an aside; like the fact that they're together is completely irrelevant to the question that's just been posed. Exclusivity is not something that they've ever discussed, or even hinted at discussing, and somewhere along the line that lack of discussion had started to feel like a deliberate choice rather than an oversight. Shaw knows where she stands on the issue (she's capable of exclusivity, especially with someone who keeps her on her toes as much as Root does, but she also doesn't feel the need for it), and she trusts that if Root felt any particular way about it, she would have brought it up by now. So. They're together, and they'd still be just as together even if Shaw had fucked Carver.
Which she very emphatically has not.]
Sorry about her. I guess she's not holding the social skills ball today.
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[ There's a bit of a drawl to her tone, though, and a smirk to her lips. She knows exactly what she's doing; it's not lack of social skills at play here. And true to Shaw's thinking, the omission on discussing exclusivity was because Root didn't care in the slightest. She's not easily threatened that way. Sex is just an expression of physicality, and ultimately physical forms are ephemeral, easily betrayed, scarcely tangible. Nothing that truly matters happens in the physical realm; it's just for fun.
Case in point, she can tell there's something here, and maybe it's not happening in deference to her, which just means she's in the best possible position to stir up trouble. And give Shaw something she wants at she same time -- win/win. ]
I'll take that as a no. [ She slings one leg over the other, casual. ] Seems like a missed opportunity to me.
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for dp
Die now, die tomorrow, die next year -- who cares, as long as she makes sure it's worth something. She wants to enjoy what time she has.
She's not going to pass up an opportunity to meet Deadpool. His whole reputation is ludicrous and wildly conflicting. Having access to dark web conversations just makes the whole thing even more confusing, because it's not like they're reliable sources, and they often contradict one another -- and the Machine, who of course knows everything there is to know about everything, doesn't give her info just for the hell of it. She's meticulous in her ethics that way, Root thinks fondly. Like father, like daughter. No, the Machine gives her just enough to do what she needs to do and nothing more.
So here's Root swanning into a dive bar like she owns the place. She'd given him a location and time to meet and said she'd find him, but nothing more. She's a tall spindly woman in fashionable yet unremarkable black, and she has two pistols tucked into the small of her back under her jacket, a knife handle sticking out of her boot, and a cochlear implant subtly visible through her hair over her right ear.
There's a bright, interested air about her like she's going on a fun jaunt, and she strides right up to Deadpool without an ounce of hesitation. ]
Are we having a drink first or right to business?
[ She's down with either one, but she's at least going to ask -- Root is highly social but also hates most of humanity, meaning when she comes across a novelty she just wants to dig in. ]
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Wade is admittedly more particular about the jobs he takes these days than he’s been in the past. There are reasons for that. Nothing’s ever completely off the table though.
New York City is one of Wade’s old haunts. Even if he doesn’t live here anymore, he finds himself drawn back often. He’s already built up a reputation here, for one. It’s also the territory of several people of interest— heroes, villains, goons, you name it. He’s familiar with the little dive bar his client pinned as their meeting point, and he’s actually a little glad to settle into a dim corner and wait. There aren’t many bars that accommodate guests like him, and thankfully this is one of them.
The woman that eventually approaches him is beautiful, yes— Wade has eyes and they work, thank you very much— but she’s also got an air of confidence that piques his interest.]
Hey, sweetheart. Not that I think just anyone’s gonna come strolling up to a heavily armed masked man sitting in a dark corner alone— kinda cliché, now I think about it— but you mind identifying yourself first? Think of it as a formality.
[He cocks his head slightly, clearly taking notice of the pistols she’s packing herself.]
Then I’ll buy you a drink, promise. Got my customer service face on and everything.
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It's strange, having people. Strange and precious, something she'd walk off a roof rather than betray.
Her confidence isn't arrogance; it's someone who knows exactly who they are, where they're going, and what they're willing to do to get there. Root isn't fearless, she's determined. And she's determined she's going to follow the Machine to the end of her days. The Machine wants her here right now, so she's here. That the Machine approved this meeting also means the Machine thinks Deadpool wouldn't really be a threat to her at the moment, whatever his reputation.
And isn't that interesting?
She gives an easy smile that has the same insouciant edge as batting her eyelashes would. ] Most people aren't any fun that way, it's true. I'm Root. [ She'd identified herself that way online when reaching out to hire him, and she has a reputation of her own inasmuch as no one anywhere is willing to admit to knowing who she is. One of her personal costs of doing business. ]
Make it something with whiskey.
[ And she sits herself down at his table, apparently content to let him handle ordering, buying, and waiting on her. ]
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He does order himself something too. The alcohol doesn’t really do much for him, but there’s a social aspect to it, especially when dealing with clients. Wade leans forward in his seat, clearly broadcasting his interest.]
Okay, Root. Not often I get these kind of calls, so this is a novelty. But I totally get it. [A little hand wave here.] Curiosity got the better of you? Couldn’t resist meeting the man, the myth, the legend in person? I am pretty popular these days. Sorry, no autographs at this time.
[He’s ordered himself a heavy-handed cocktail and stirs it with the straw a bit when it’s placed in front of him. He doesn’t lift his mask any to drink just yet.]
Unless you’ve got another reason? [Just a light probing.]
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Fuck it let's do it - modern POI AU
Shoes, s'il vous plait.
[ She reminds the other woman with a gentle chide, not looking up from where she's sitting at a vintage hardwood desk, sorting through the photography from her recent trip to the Amazon. Most of the photographs have been placed in the 'lacking' pile, but there are a small number of which Clea approves. She holds a photograph of a small brightly colored frog up above her head, examining it with a frown, going back and forth on its merits.
If she must question, it is a no.
She adds the photograph to the pile of rejects and finally turns to give her 'guest' her full attention.
There are few people Clea allows in her atelier out of a desire to preserve her privacy, but she is one of them. If one wishes to acquire interesting goods, one must make interesting friends, and the best way to ingratiate oneself is to provide services. The jobs provide a suitable challenge and a network which is unburdened by questions of legality, though Clea prefers to keep herself away from the messier side of that world: she's not trying to end up bleeding out in an alley like a common thug. ]
It's been a long time. I was beginning to think you'd become banal - acquired a husband, children, and a golden retriever. Please do not ask for a donation to a children's school.
[ Her voice has a teasing lilt to it, as the notion is ridiculous. ]
What name are we using today, madame?
[ It is fascinating how the other woman so readily inhabits her personae. Clea has never had a talent for acting or disappearing; she is too much herself. Yet this woman is an actress par excellence of the deepest sort, entirely subsuming herself and yet never being lost. ]
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[ She does have a fake identity she's working under currently, of course, but it doesn't matter. Root is here on the Machine's orders, specifically as herself -- which is interesting. It's almost like a personal gift if she didn't know better. Root loves puzzles, and excuses to see people she likes -- and she hasn't had much downtime since she decided to follow the Machine. Not that she's complaining (never) but she is, unfortunately, a flesh and blood human who can't go on endlessly.
She's sure this little assignment isn't solely for her benefit, though she does think that might be a secondary motive. The Machine doesn't play matchmaker for her agents' primate social needs, not past that one time when she was young and she introduced Harold to Grace. No, the Machine never tells her much, and in this case it was even more minimal than normal: visit Clea. Someone she hasn't seen in years but has thought about quite a few times since. It's rare that Root clicks on a personal level with someone, and when she does, she latches on. Not tightly -- she's like a cat, always leaving to do her own things but coming back routinely for treats and attention -- but assuredly, leaving no question of her attachment.
Root pauses momentarily to kick off her three inch heels as directed, leaving her in sheer black pantyhose and an understated color-block dress, hair artfully tousled in a chignon. She could be any well-dressed professional Frenchwoman wandering in off the street.
Leaving the shoes carelessly to the side, she pads over in stocking feet to examine the pile of pictures, head tilting to orient them better. A smaller, more honest smile finds its way onto her face. ]
These are the rejects, right? [ she asks, taking a guess. ] Can I have one?
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Clea's grey eyes flicker over to Root. She wonders what the purpose is of Root's visit: It has been some time since she's requested any of Clea's services. ]
If you insist, though you deserve better.
[ Why she would want one from the rejects, Clea isn't certain. The photographs Root sees all look like they could easily belong in a nature photo exhibition - photographs of exotic flora and fauna both - but in each Clea has identified what she's determined is a glaring flaw.
Clea draws out a photograph from the much thinner pile of those that had met her standards and passes it over to Root for inspection: A large white bellied Caiman alligator in the midst of preying on an anaconda, mouth having just clamped down on the doomed snake. The two animals are framed by lush green leaves and bright blooms - a multilayered photograph Clea had painstakingly developed in the old way in a darkroom.
It's a much more interesting piece than the ones Root is considering. ]
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Which means the term of endearment is perfectly genuine and not flippant, and Clea's insistence that Root deserves better provokes an amused widening of her smile. ]
It's hard for me to hold onto material objects these days, so I didn't want to take any of your good ones, [ she explains, which is perfectly true. ] But I can still appreciate them.
[ She examines the one Clea is silently suggesting. ]
I like it. Comforting to think you haven't changed much, either.
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for bossie (etraya)
She comes swanning up to the subway entrance and stops in front of the vending machine. She stares unerringly and acutely directly into the surveillance camera. ]
Knock knock, [ she says brightly.
Root is a slender woman on the taller side dressed in a cutesy cotton summer dress. Her hair is perfectly curled into artful tumbles and she has a discreet little purse just large enough to contain a Taser, a handgun, and the secondary network device Harold had put together. A girl always needs the essentials. ]
Re: for bossie (etraya)
[But he drawls the question with a smile. He's curious, and he has a hunch he knows who this is.
He's not going to just open up the door, though.]
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If you have to ask, this is going to be a really disappointing conversation for me.
[ People that can't keep up with her -- which is most people -- are boring. ]
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[ That makes her smile widen, eyes returning to the road as she follows the GPS to the next off-ramp. ]
That's the spirit. We're stopping for gas -- you'll have to stay in the car, but I'll grab you a snack. And that coffee.
Any requests?
[ Another little choice, a light push to get him used to thinking about making his own decisions.
They're in upstate New York in a heavily wooded rural area, the isolation convenient for the research facility. It's too dark to see much at the moment, but the trees are sprayed with color as the leaves turn for the winter, and the road winds beside the craggy cliffs of old mountains. They're going to be driving for hours to make it back to the city, and Root is certain there's a detour with a good view that the Machine can find, even if it will be in the middle of the night. ]
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I don't know. [He, sadly, does not have a lot of experience with gas station snacks, though he still takes Root's question seriously and thinks for a few moments.] Anything that goes with coffee.
[That seems like a safe bet, and after everything that just happened he could use something to eat.]