2014.02.27 - Anemic Toast

It’s four in the afternoon and like ninety-percent of the SHEILD agents of British extraction have gathered in the cafeteria for their cuppa. Like Fight Club, nobody explicitly /talks/ about this little ritual, but by her fourth day on the Argus, Etta is aware. She gives a little head nod to another agent she passes as she makes her way towards a chair with her tea and a couple digestives, the unspoken acknowledgement of their PG Tips based kinship expressed but not vocalized. Into a seat she slips with a little sigh, gazing into her paper cup as she swirls in the milk like she might catch a glimpse of the future there.

And like an urban legend dressed in black and wearing a cape -- but without either the 'urban legend' or the 'cape' parts -- Wisdom comes outta nowhere, speaking up from behind Etta after she's settled. "Oh, you're here," he says, carrying a cup of unsweetened tea as black as his soul; he schleps past her and takes the seat across from her, looking rather like a zombie coming off a novena bender. Thinner than she'd remember, and with the papery complexion and dark wells under his eyes of someone who hasn't slept properly in a few weeks, he seems to be setting the bar very low for the physical fitness of SHIELD agents. "Sorry if you tried texting or something. Been busy."

She doesn’t start at the sound of his voice, but then that’s what all that SHIELD training was about presumably. Between that and the copious personal experience, she’s inoculated by this point. She looks him up and down with a sweep of her gaze and it’s a good thing that it’s a figurative cape, otherwise their reunion would involve an absolute shit-ton of teasing on Etta’s part. “You look like hell on toast. Anemic toast.” She concludes by way of effusive British greeting. “I did once I think, when I got lost in the storage area, but like Gretel I eventually found my way out again. No bother.”

Having established that both their lips are of sufficient stiffness to justify their accents, she allows herself a little smile that betrays her affection for her ex-partner. “How are you? Quite a situation you have going on here.” She says, managing to indicate the entire massive floating ship with a little flick of her gaze.

"Hope you left the breadcrumbs," Wisdom says, slouching into his seat and putting his cooling tea on the table without touching it. "Crunch under people's feet in storage. Spontaneously generate rats. Brilliant plan." He surveys Etta analytically, and there's the ghost of returned affection in the expression he takes away from it-- but all his body language is honestly negative, turned inward. He's walling his feelings off, for the most part, but every once in a while a little thorn of abject misery slices through.

He sips his tea, finally.

"Not up here much. Check in, mostly. Can file reports from my phone. Just as well, hate heights." Why yes: he absolutely just glossed past the 'how are you', because the answer's pretty obviously 'bleeding despair' and that's just not a good topic of conversation over tea. "How long you been in town, then? Hope it's not /too/ long, I already feel a right tosser..."

Henrietta Black absorbs the breadcrumbs-and-recriminations bit with poised equanimity, bringing her paper cup to her lips for a see-how-unphased-I-am sip. She swirls it about in her mouth before swallowing and saying succinctly, “Twat.” She indulges in another, quicker sip before continuing on, “A few days. Still getting the lay of the land. Thus far I’ve learned that I should keep an ashtray in my pocket at all times and that if I leave custard creams in my desk it will attract miniature dinosaurs. Bit of a steep learning curve, but thus far nobody has shot at me, which I’m taking as an encouraging sign.”

Worry is creeping into the edges of her gaze as she watches him, more and more the longer she sits there in contemplation. It shows because she sounds practically tender as she adds, “And you are a tosser. Utterly.”

At least the first accusation nets Etta an actual grin, if brief; the dinosaur comment startles him into looking faintly guilty, and he focuses /very hard/ on the film that's starting to develop on his cooling tea. "Dinosaurs? You're daft. Dinosaurs are extinct," he says, so obviously dodgily that it's clear he had a hand in the reptilian presence aboard the helicarrier.

Pete shifts uncomfortably in the plastic cafeteria chair, glancing up; it's like the blue in his eyes is faded. He's probably done something terrible and unforgivable, then. That's the flavor of the angst. But he's got past it before; he always gets past it. "Really? I wasn't sure. I might need to kick a few puppies. Cement it, like. What've you been up to since you got in? Aside from getting your bearings. You met the gestalt down in sciences yet?"

“Oh, well then, in that case I had the most amazingly vivid hallucination in front of Director Fury and AD Hill and I expect our delightful reunion will be interrupted any moment by the kind white-coated men with butterfly nets sent hither to claim me on their orders.” All delivered in a voice dry enough to make dust seem moist. She barely seems aware of the words though, and by now her brows have started to furrow towards each other with concern that’s growing too pointed to be concealed behind banter.

”Pete...” She starts, clearly about to go there when the rest of his comment sinks in with something like a slap. She sits quite upright suddenly, “What? Why? What have you heard?” She asks with ill-concealed alarm.

And Wisdom, sensing the oncoming truck of doom, is like half-flinched in advance of the question Etta was about to ask--

--and then he gives her a look kind of like he was expecting a train to hit him and got himself tossed a bottle of scotch and a carton of cigarettes instead. Baffled and startled but totally willing to go with it. "Things," he says archly, patting at his pocket for his cigarettes-- then remembering he's in the cafeteria and he's not going to be the first to light up /this/ time. "Always better straight from the source, though, innit?"

He’s clearly won this round. Henrietta sits there staring at him with a look of abject horror, mouth agape. It’s the look of someone who tripped, fell and landed straight in the open cookie jar right in front of a host of witnesses. Her lips make several fruitless attempts to shape sounds before she successfully manages to mutter, “Bloody... buggering /hell/! Are you serious? It’s been, what... sixteen hours? Are there video feeds?”

That starts out as ironic bitching and then immediately becomes panic. She reaches across the table and clutches his sickly wrist with a death grip, going all wide eyed as she asks, “/ARE/ there video feeds? With sound? Is that what... oh lord.” She gives up, shoulders slumped. “I’m going to have to transfer back to Budapest. If they’ll even have me. I’ll be lucky if I don’t end up in Botswana. Dear lord in heaven how am I this stupid...”

"The floors are practically made of audiovisual monitoring," Wisdom says apologetically, patting Etta's grippy hand gently with his free one, then rubbing his wrist when she lets go. "Just expect any SHIELD walls to have ears. Only magical girls with swords can break in and stay off camera."

Cue the strangely specific denial. And the bitter self-mockery. Pete glances down at the now-iridescent film atop his tea, and nudges the paper cup away from him, then glances back up at Etta. "Honestly, though, how exactly did it happen? And don't worry, they haven't kicked me out yet."

She’ll wonder about the sword-bearing magical vixens later, though it’s Pete, and those are practically taken for granted where he’s concerned. For the moment though her doom weighs too heavy on her shoulders to make for a particularly sharp conversational partner. She stays slumped over the table, biscuit crumbs caught in her hair, inflating and deflating with an enormous sigh. “I was coming back from the gym and I was restless and I thought, goodness Etta, why not go on a bit of a wander. And Doctor Banner was singing and I thought I’d stop and then we talked and I almost... upset him... and then a bit of hand holding and, la, now I have a date.” This is said more to the tabletop than him, mind, as she lies there in a heap. “I haven’t been on a date in... good lord in heaven... at least three years. I won’t know what to say. I don’t own a dress. I think I traded the last one I owned in order to get out of having to help drag an eastern European river filled with bloated dead livestock and toxic chemicals while I was in Kiev.” By way of summary she adds, “I’m well and truly fucked, mate.”

Pete stares for a second; this is clearly news to him. "You're going on a date with /Banner/?" he finally sputters, then starts laughing. He pats down his pockets again, practically cackling, then comes up with his wallet and hands over a Stark Industries platinum card. At least Etta's misery has cheered him up some! Silver linings, right? "Here: get a dress. Call me if a villain attacks or something, promise I'll pick up."

Limply she lifts her wrist to receive the offered credit card. And the ensuing puzzlement about /why/ her oh-so-supportive ex-partner has Tony Stark’s credit card almost distract her from the enormity of her plight.

Almost.

”You know what, darling?” She asks in a dry, longsuffering voice that apes an intentionally unconvincing tone of sweetness. “I am not going to ask if I will get arrested for using this. Because, really, at this point... in for a penny, in for a pound. And I’m going to buy a dress. And you’re, as I intimated earlier, a complete and utter wanker.”

She summons her remaining British fortitude and rises, queen-like and majestic, from her hard plastic cafeteria seat. Sweeping around the edge of the table she leaves him to clean up the remains of tea, bending over the top of his dark and pasty head to plant a kiss on his brow without explanation or apology. “When I am done with my date and getting fired, we’re going to talk, however. Pencil me in, my duck. And bring the Red Breast.”

And with that, Henrietta strides from the cafeteria to buy a dress, have a date and meet her doom, not necessarily in that order.