In which Sinister attempts grocery shopping, and meets his assistant.
OOC: Isobel has a journal, Izzy_Chambers, which will function sort of like Irene Merrywhether's (as I totally stole this idea from Cable!Mun), so if she interacts with you, that's who she is. She's terrified of Sinister but trying to be a Good Assistant and is really very proud to be a member of SHIELD. I apologize for the Jeremy Irons reference. This is entirely suitable for all ages.
Sinister!Mun is having way. too. much. fun. with this plot :) I like to imagine he is at a Winn Dixie in the first part of this. ::G::
The day after he'd arrived, Nathaniel slept late and then went to procure groceries. He was careful to maintain his psychic shield so that he did not frighten the other humans who were also doing their shopping. In London, he usually sent out for groceries, and he had never in his life been to such a large store as this particular grocer's establishment. There were too many children, his cart was unwieldy and had some problem with its back wheel (he finally stopped in the middle of the produce section to fix that--there were benefits to being a genius), and he was not sure exactly what the difference was between regular produce and "organic" produce, except the latter cost three times as much.
It was very strange to be moving so effortlessly amongst everyday, ordinary humans. He'd spent most of his life hidden in the shadows, really, either because of his scientific pursuits or because of his alliances with men such as Apocalypse. Nathaniel was a telepath, but he was well-aware that he was hardly a very powerful one, so he hid himself whenever he left the confines of his home. This notion of wandering about with everyone else was..strange. He wasn't stupid enough to think that being an agent of SHIELD would mean he was out of danger--Cyclops would go for his throat if they ever met--but there were substantially less people trying to hunt him down and eliminate him, now that he was reforming.
He thought of it as being employed. Nathaniel had never much cared for the agenda of who paid him, unless it was substantially impacting his work.
Modern society was not, as it turned out, something he was used to. Not so much in terms of fashion--he'd gotten over that particular shock in the nineteen-twenties--but just...people in general. They all spent a great deal of time on their cellular phones (Nathaniel had one, now, from SHIELD--he'd left it at home, turned off, at the bottom of the brand-new SHIELD briefcase he was never going to use), and they all looked very...tired. Harried. No one had any manners, either--he was jostled by at least four people, and only one of them apologized. They seemed very busy, yet annoyed about it, as if nothing they were doing was at all enjoyable or satisfying.
Nathaniel would have maybe felt sorry for them, but caring about strangers was most definitely beyond the scope of his current emotional radar.
That was not to say some of them were not friendly--perhaps a bit too friendly, he discovered. As he paid for his groceries, he had a bit of confusion about the money (why did all American money have to look the same?) and the checker helped him, smiling brightly and rather vapidly, and saying in her syrupy-sweet accent (everyone here reminded him of Rogue when they spoke, though to give her credit, Anna Darkholme didn't sound like an idiot--most of the time, anyway), "Aw, ya ain't from 'round here, huh?"
That actually took him several minutes to translate. "Ah...no. I am not. I just relocated. From London."
"That's in Europe," the girl said, very proudly. She beamed at him. She had metal on her teeth for some reason.
Nathaniel wondered if he were expected to make some response to that. "Yes, indeed it is. Britain, in fact."
"That's England..and like, Scotland, right?"
Was she...perhaps a bit daft in the head? "Yes," Nathaniel said slowly. "Great Britain does indeed include Scotland. And Wales. And Northern Ireland."
"Ah'm Irish," the girl said perkily, scanning his carton of milk for the third time, staring off into space. "Mah name's Sarah. That's Irish, ain't it?"
He had no idea how to answer that. "I am sure, somewhere in Ireland, there is a girl named Sarah," he answered, watching her with the eggs rather nervously. Was she going to put that jar of marinara sauce...yes, yes she was. He used his telekinesis to shift the arrangement of items in the bag, without her notice, so that the eggs would remain intact for the journey home.
The girl grinned. "Ya have a cute accent," she said. "Kinda--ya kinda sound like Scar."
"I--beg your pardon?" Scar? That was some foe of the Avengers, wasn't it?
"The evil lion."
Nathaniel was beginning to feel dizzy. "Evil...lion?" Perhaps the girl was taking some mind-altering substance. He'd read an article about narcotics use amongst young people. He tried to remember if when he was this girl's age, anyone he knew was this stupid. He didn't think so, but it was a long time ago.
"Disney movie. Lion King. It's a musical. Thought all you British people were all cultured and stuff. 'Cept, like, you sound like the British guy who was Scar. Think he was in that dragon movie, too. Dunno his name, though." She finished with his groceries and went to give him his change. "Have a nice day. Don't like, drive on the wrong side of the road or anything."
"I shall endeavor most sincerely not to do that," he said blandly. The girl giggled. Nathaniel left, thoroughly confused. Outside of the shopping center, there were young boys with their hair in their eyes, playing on something that looked to be a piece of wood with wheels on it, and falling over as they attempted to pilot the thing down a railing on the stairs.
Honestly, how had humanity managed to survive? Good god. If he did not find an answer to why there were no more mutants, he was going to be sharing the earth with a bunch of slack-jawed idiots riding about on wooden boards with wheels. Nathaniel shuddered. For once, he found himself in agreement with Magneto about homo superior, and endeavored to work harder to find a solution to the cessation of mutant births.
He returned home and put the groceries away, straightening the kitchen as he did so--everything was in the wrong place--when there was a knock at his front door, and then a voice calling out, "Dr. Essex?"
The idea of someone walking into his home was completely foreign to him. "Yes?" He made no effort to find the intruder, who was probably his aforementioned assistant, mostly out of pique at the unwelcome intrusion. That would take some getting used to.
"Um...I'm Isobel? Isobel Chambers? Deputy Director Stark assigned me to you." The voice was growing closer. "Would you? Um. Mind telling me where you are? This house is kind of big."
"I am invisible," Nathaniel said, which was really rather mean of him.
"The files said you can alter your shape but not disappear unless you are teleporting, and since you are still speaking--" Isobel rounded the corner into the kitchen, sounding a bit triumphant, but she stopped the minute she caught sight of him. "Um. H--hi."
Isobel Chambers was obviously not hired for security. She was very young, probably around the same age as Rachel (though Nathaniel was, come to think of it, not quite sure how old Rachel was) with a round face and long reddish blonde hair. She had on a pair of jeans and a cardigan of some sort, in a pale green color. She was very fair, and had large, dark eyes.
She also was quite clearly terrified.
Nathaniel kept his face impassive. Rachel once told him that it was less scary than him smiling, and the poor girl looked like she was going to pitch over in a dead faint. "Yes, I was only...teasing." He crossed his arms over his chest. When he moved, she jumped back a little. As in, almost back to the front door.
"I--I'm. Supposed to be. Um. Your assistant?"
Was Stark having him on? "My assistant."
"For, um. Your research? I'm a geneticist, too." She was looking at everything but him. "I know I'm young, but um. I have a gift, kind of. I'm a--a science prodigy."
"I see. Are you a mutant?"
"No. A genetically altered human. I got kind of zapped. With a cosmic ray. When I was a baby. I mean, in utero. I wasn't actually, you know, a baby." She took a deep breath, held it for what seemed like a long time to him, then expelled it. "I mean, I was a baby, cause um, we all are. At first. But not a mutant! They said you wouldn't really care?"
He was trying to follow her logic. A prodigy? Not in the English language, to be certain. "That you are a human? No, I do not care. I am not Magneto."
"Oh, yeah, I don't think they'd let me work with him. Besides, he just blows stuff up. I'm not in special ops, you know," she gave a forced laugh. She still wasn't looking at him.
Nathaniel looked up at the ceiling. Oh, lord. Somewhere, Tony Stark was laughing at him, he just knew it. "If my appearance is bothersome, Miss Chambers, I am happy to alter it so that you do not find it...distracting."
"What?" She forced herself to look at him. He wasn't reading her mind, but he didn't really need to. Every thought the girl had was written plainly on her face. "No! No. It's...fine. It's just...I, ah. I just flew in from North Dakota. So I had your file to read. I hate flying, so I...read it, to distract myself from the bumps? Because it was really bumpy. The flight. Not your file. That was in a folder and it was really smooth. It's just...maybe I should have met you first. Before I read it."
"Ah." That at least made sense. He cleared his throat. "If you read my file, you would know that I very rarely bother harming people when I have no reason to do so, and I just met you." He tried smiling. That apparently was a bad decision, so he stopped. "Would you like to see the laboratory?"
Her eyes brightened at that. "Yes! I heard that Director Stark got all of this cool stuff for us. For you. I mean, you know. I get to use it. Anyway! There's cool stuff. A gene separator. I had one in college. Well, not me, but the lab. I used it sometimes."
Nathaniel headed to the back door, opening it for her politely. She dashed by him with a nervous look over her shoulder. Nathaniel bit back a laugh. She reminded him of a rabbit.
I hope I don't have to go swimming with him.
"I can assure you, that will likely never happen." Nathaniel remembered the security code and opened the door to the laboratory. He motioned for her to go up the stairs, and followed at a distance behind her so as not to scare her further. "There is a suite, in here. With a kitchen. I surmise that it is for you."
"I forgot that you could read minds." She bypassed the room and went straight into the lab. "Oh! Oh! Look at this! A gene sequencer! I totally think these are awesome. I had this professor in college? He used to let me do his research for him. Because he was sleeping with this one graduate student. And I'd spend hours with the thing. He'd spend hours with his graduate student. It was a good relationship. Except they fired him for the grad student. Since he was married? And then he published his research--well, my research, actually--and he got hired at Cal Poly Tech, and he divorced his wife--sad, she had these two twins who were like, thirteen--and he married the student and they live on a boat or something."
Nathaniel stood at watched her as she prowled around the lab. He ignored her prattle and focused on what she was doing, how she correctly identified and handled the equipment. She looked up at him and fired off six or seven questions in a row in rapid succession, which threw him a moment before he collected his thoughts enough to answer her.
She wasn't an idiot. She was a bit...odd...but competent, definitely. That was enough for him. He could deal with mildly annoying. He'd dealt with much worse.
"So, um, where was my room again?"
Once the focus was off of science and back on more mundane things, she looked nervous again. Nathaniel showed her the small apartment. "I do hope you get more use from the pool than I do. You obviously have a key to the house--"
"--Oh, but I don't need. To go in there. When you're there."
"How are you going to spy on me and report my nefarious activities to Stark if you never see me?" He was being dreadful, but it was so easy.
"Dr. Essex, I'm a genius, too." She crossed her arms and glared at him. For approximately three seconds, before she looked away. "I am only supposed to report back about your methodology. I don't think anyone cares about...other stuff."
"So I should release the prisoners from the basement?"
She swallowed. "Y-yeah. I mean, I would probably have to report that?" She almost looked apologetic. "You're...kidding? I thought your file said you couldn't do that. Make jokes."
"Many people say that when I try," he agreed seriously.
"That--okay, so that's wrong. God, is it so hard to get me updated information?" She looked annoyed, then looked back at the gene separator again. "So. When do we get started?"
"I have some preliminary thoughts on the files--ah, you should probably like to read them. I have them in the study. In the house. If you would be so kind as to follow me, I shall give them to you."
She did, but at a distance. Her mental presence was jumpy, like an overexcited kangaroo. Crossed with a deer confronted by headlights. Nathaniel went into his study and found the files. He gathered them up, along with his notes, and handed them over. "You may read my notes, if you like. Perhaps once you are caught up, we can discuss your thoughts."
She was too far away from him to take the file. The way she edged closer to him made him stifle a laugh. He resisted the urge to shake the papers at her. Barely. She reached out and grabbed them, then scampered away again. She looked down at them. Nathaniel noticed she didn't move, watched the way her gaze sharpened and focused as she read. It was remarkable, really, the change. He wondered what the poor girl would be doing, if it weren't for her fortunate run-in with the cosmic ray.
Possibly she'd be a supermarket checker. He coughed to hide his laugh, and waited politely, idly scanning the books in the shelves behind her. They were all classics. Did Stark think he sat around reading Great Expectations just because he'd lived in the same time as Charles Dickens? Probably.
"Are you staring at me?"
Startled, he looked back at her. It was the question that surprised him, merely her willingness to say it. "No. I was looking just to your left. The books, behind you. You shall get used to it, I am told. My having no pupils," he explained.
"Right. Okay. So I'm going to...do you have some food? I'm starving. I drove here from Atlanta and didn't stop for food. I was kind of nervous. I'm still kind of nervous, but I figure I better eat something or I'll faint, and then that would be silly, but I think maybe I could eat now if you have something else to do?"
There was a moment when Nathaniel realized the utter brilliance of Anthony Stark assigning Isobel Chambers as his assistant. There was no need for him to read her mind, because she said everything she thought anyway. There was no subtlety, no subterfuge to the girl. Unless it was all a trick. He scanned her mind, quickly, and found her to be just what she'd said. Nervous, hungry. She was scared of him, but intrigued by the research. She wanted to eat and then go to her room and take a shower and a nap, but she didn't think she could sleep. She wanted to look at the lab without him standing there and watching her. She hoped she didn't have to be around him that much. She thought his eyes were a pretty color red, and he had a nice voice. She was repeating the wording from his file, over and over--
Essex appears a gentleman and is exceedingly polite. Do not let that fool you--he is ruthless and utterly without compassion for anyone. Do not goad him and absolutely do not lower your guard, and try to engage him in moral arguments as little as possible as he is a moral relativist. Defending yourself against him physically is next to impossible, as he can heal from damage--go for the eyes to buy yourself a moment if escape is necessary and call SHIELD security immediately. Essex has only one known weakness--
Nathaniel started at that. His eyes narrowed. He was staring at her, now. A fact which she noticed.
"You're--you're definitely staring at me right now."
He nodded. "Go on," he said quietly, his voice a low, threatening purr. "My one weakness? What is it? According to the fine people at SHIELD."
"It's--not a what," Isobel said, just as quietly. "It's a--a who."
"Miss Chambers, I am perfectly prepared to be civil to you, to work with you, and to willingly accept your particular expertise in matters of genetics, as I can tell you are not lying about being very skilled in that area. I have no intention under heaven to lay a finger on you at at all. However, I should warn you, the file was correct. I am rather without compassion, and if you harm my one known weakness, I shall toss you into the river and turn my back on you while you drown. Are we quite clear?"
Well, that must have succeeded in terrifying her. She gave a slow nod, but she kept her gaze on his. "I don't hurt people, Dr. Essex," she said in a trembling whisper. "I help them. I would never hurt someone to get at someone else."
"You must not have worked for SHIELD long enough, then," he said, and looked away first. "I apologize if I frightened you. If you wish, I shall fix lunch. You may take it with you--I certainly do not require you to dance attendance upon me. I am quite content to be alone."
"It's...all right." She shrugged. "Got to get used to you, sometime." She gave a small, tentative laugh. "The eye thing. That'll--take some getting used to."
Nathaniel looked back at her, and shifted his eyes so that they appeared normal.
She shrieked and clapped her hand over her mouth.
"Not an improvement?"
She shook her head. About four times. Nathaniel shifted his eyes back to normal. "Do not say I did not try," he said, walking past her into the kitchen. He had to show her where everything was, so she did not mess it all up.
Sinister!Mun is having way. too. much. fun. with this plot :) I like to imagine he is at a Winn Dixie in the first part of this. ::G::
The day after he'd arrived, Nathaniel slept late and then went to procure groceries. He was careful to maintain his psychic shield so that he did not frighten the other humans who were also doing their shopping. In London, he usually sent out for groceries, and he had never in his life been to such a large store as this particular grocer's establishment. There were too many children, his cart was unwieldy and had some problem with its back wheel (he finally stopped in the middle of the produce section to fix that--there were benefits to being a genius), and he was not sure exactly what the difference was between regular produce and "organic" produce, except the latter cost three times as much.
It was very strange to be moving so effortlessly amongst everyday, ordinary humans. He'd spent most of his life hidden in the shadows, really, either because of his scientific pursuits or because of his alliances with men such as Apocalypse. Nathaniel was a telepath, but he was well-aware that he was hardly a very powerful one, so he hid himself whenever he left the confines of his home. This notion of wandering about with everyone else was..strange. He wasn't stupid enough to think that being an agent of SHIELD would mean he was out of danger--Cyclops would go for his throat if they ever met--but there were substantially less people trying to hunt him down and eliminate him, now that he was reforming.
He thought of it as being employed. Nathaniel had never much cared for the agenda of who paid him, unless it was substantially impacting his work.
Modern society was not, as it turned out, something he was used to. Not so much in terms of fashion--he'd gotten over that particular shock in the nineteen-twenties--but just...people in general. They all spent a great deal of time on their cellular phones (Nathaniel had one, now, from SHIELD--he'd left it at home, turned off, at the bottom of the brand-new SHIELD briefcase he was never going to use), and they all looked very...tired. Harried. No one had any manners, either--he was jostled by at least four people, and only one of them apologized. They seemed very busy, yet annoyed about it, as if nothing they were doing was at all enjoyable or satisfying.
Nathaniel would have maybe felt sorry for them, but caring about strangers was most definitely beyond the scope of his current emotional radar.
That was not to say some of them were not friendly--perhaps a bit too friendly, he discovered. As he paid for his groceries, he had a bit of confusion about the money (why did all American money have to look the same?) and the checker helped him, smiling brightly and rather vapidly, and saying in her syrupy-sweet accent (everyone here reminded him of Rogue when they spoke, though to give her credit, Anna Darkholme didn't sound like an idiot--most of the time, anyway), "Aw, ya ain't from 'round here, huh?"
That actually took him several minutes to translate. "Ah...no. I am not. I just relocated. From London."
"That's in Europe," the girl said, very proudly. She beamed at him. She had metal on her teeth for some reason.
Nathaniel wondered if he were expected to make some response to that. "Yes, indeed it is. Britain, in fact."
"That's England..and like, Scotland, right?"
Was she...perhaps a bit daft in the head? "Yes," Nathaniel said slowly. "Great Britain does indeed include Scotland. And Wales. And Northern Ireland."
"Ah'm Irish," the girl said perkily, scanning his carton of milk for the third time, staring off into space. "Mah name's Sarah. That's Irish, ain't it?"
He had no idea how to answer that. "I am sure, somewhere in Ireland, there is a girl named Sarah," he answered, watching her with the eggs rather nervously. Was she going to put that jar of marinara sauce...yes, yes she was. He used his telekinesis to shift the arrangement of items in the bag, without her notice, so that the eggs would remain intact for the journey home.
The girl grinned. "Ya have a cute accent," she said. "Kinda--ya kinda sound like Scar."
"I--beg your pardon?" Scar? That was some foe of the Avengers, wasn't it?
"The evil lion."
Nathaniel was beginning to feel dizzy. "Evil...lion?" Perhaps the girl was taking some mind-altering substance. He'd read an article about narcotics use amongst young people. He tried to remember if when he was this girl's age, anyone he knew was this stupid. He didn't think so, but it was a long time ago.
"Disney movie. Lion King. It's a musical. Thought all you British people were all cultured and stuff. 'Cept, like, you sound like the British guy who was Scar. Think he was in that dragon movie, too. Dunno his name, though." She finished with his groceries and went to give him his change. "Have a nice day. Don't like, drive on the wrong side of the road or anything."
"I shall endeavor most sincerely not to do that," he said blandly. The girl giggled. Nathaniel left, thoroughly confused. Outside of the shopping center, there were young boys with their hair in their eyes, playing on something that looked to be a piece of wood with wheels on it, and falling over as they attempted to pilot the thing down a railing on the stairs.
Honestly, how had humanity managed to survive? Good god. If he did not find an answer to why there were no more mutants, he was going to be sharing the earth with a bunch of slack-jawed idiots riding about on wooden boards with wheels. Nathaniel shuddered. For once, he found himself in agreement with Magneto about homo superior, and endeavored to work harder to find a solution to the cessation of mutant births.
He returned home and put the groceries away, straightening the kitchen as he did so--everything was in the wrong place--when there was a knock at his front door, and then a voice calling out, "Dr. Essex?"
The idea of someone walking into his home was completely foreign to him. "Yes?" He made no effort to find the intruder, who was probably his aforementioned assistant, mostly out of pique at the unwelcome intrusion. That would take some getting used to.
"Um...I'm Isobel? Isobel Chambers? Deputy Director Stark assigned me to you." The voice was growing closer. "Would you? Um. Mind telling me where you are? This house is kind of big."
"I am invisible," Nathaniel said, which was really rather mean of him.
"The files said you can alter your shape but not disappear unless you are teleporting, and since you are still speaking--" Isobel rounded the corner into the kitchen, sounding a bit triumphant, but she stopped the minute she caught sight of him. "Um. H--hi."
Isobel Chambers was obviously not hired for security. She was very young, probably around the same age as Rachel (though Nathaniel was, come to think of it, not quite sure how old Rachel was) with a round face and long reddish blonde hair. She had on a pair of jeans and a cardigan of some sort, in a pale green color. She was very fair, and had large, dark eyes.
She also was quite clearly terrified.
Nathaniel kept his face impassive. Rachel once told him that it was less scary than him smiling, and the poor girl looked like she was going to pitch over in a dead faint. "Yes, I was only...teasing." He crossed his arms over his chest. When he moved, she jumped back a little. As in, almost back to the front door.
"I--I'm. Supposed to be. Um. Your assistant?"
Was Stark having him on? "My assistant."
"For, um. Your research? I'm a geneticist, too." She was looking at everything but him. "I know I'm young, but um. I have a gift, kind of. I'm a--a science prodigy."
"I see. Are you a mutant?"
"No. A genetically altered human. I got kind of zapped. With a cosmic ray. When I was a baby. I mean, in utero. I wasn't actually, you know, a baby." She took a deep breath, held it for what seemed like a long time to him, then expelled it. "I mean, I was a baby, cause um, we all are. At first. But not a mutant! They said you wouldn't really care?"
He was trying to follow her logic. A prodigy? Not in the English language, to be certain. "That you are a human? No, I do not care. I am not Magneto."
"Oh, yeah, I don't think they'd let me work with him. Besides, he just blows stuff up. I'm not in special ops, you know," she gave a forced laugh. She still wasn't looking at him.
Nathaniel looked up at the ceiling. Oh, lord. Somewhere, Tony Stark was laughing at him, he just knew it. "If my appearance is bothersome, Miss Chambers, I am happy to alter it so that you do not find it...distracting."
"What?" She forced herself to look at him. He wasn't reading her mind, but he didn't really need to. Every thought the girl had was written plainly on her face. "No! No. It's...fine. It's just...I, ah. I just flew in from North Dakota. So I had your file to read. I hate flying, so I...read it, to distract myself from the bumps? Because it was really bumpy. The flight. Not your file. That was in a folder and it was really smooth. It's just...maybe I should have met you first. Before I read it."
"Ah." That at least made sense. He cleared his throat. "If you read my file, you would know that I very rarely bother harming people when I have no reason to do so, and I just met you." He tried smiling. That apparently was a bad decision, so he stopped. "Would you like to see the laboratory?"
Her eyes brightened at that. "Yes! I heard that Director Stark got all of this cool stuff for us. For you. I mean, you know. I get to use it. Anyway! There's cool stuff. A gene separator. I had one in college. Well, not me, but the lab. I used it sometimes."
Nathaniel headed to the back door, opening it for her politely. She dashed by him with a nervous look over her shoulder. Nathaniel bit back a laugh. She reminded him of a rabbit.
I hope I don't have to go swimming with him.
"I can assure you, that will likely never happen." Nathaniel remembered the security code and opened the door to the laboratory. He motioned for her to go up the stairs, and followed at a distance behind her so as not to scare her further. "There is a suite, in here. With a kitchen. I surmise that it is for you."
"I forgot that you could read minds." She bypassed the room and went straight into the lab. "Oh! Oh! Look at this! A gene sequencer! I totally think these are awesome. I had this professor in college? He used to let me do his research for him. Because he was sleeping with this one graduate student. And I'd spend hours with the thing. He'd spend hours with his graduate student. It was a good relationship. Except they fired him for the grad student. Since he was married? And then he published his research--well, my research, actually--and he got hired at Cal Poly Tech, and he divorced his wife--sad, she had these two twins who were like, thirteen--and he married the student and they live on a boat or something."
Nathaniel stood at watched her as she prowled around the lab. He ignored her prattle and focused on what she was doing, how she correctly identified and handled the equipment. She looked up at him and fired off six or seven questions in a row in rapid succession, which threw him a moment before he collected his thoughts enough to answer her.
She wasn't an idiot. She was a bit...odd...but competent, definitely. That was enough for him. He could deal with mildly annoying. He'd dealt with much worse.
"So, um, where was my room again?"
Once the focus was off of science and back on more mundane things, she looked nervous again. Nathaniel showed her the small apartment. "I do hope you get more use from the pool than I do. You obviously have a key to the house--"
"--Oh, but I don't need. To go in there. When you're there."
"How are you going to spy on me and report my nefarious activities to Stark if you never see me?" He was being dreadful, but it was so easy.
"Dr. Essex, I'm a genius, too." She crossed her arms and glared at him. For approximately three seconds, before she looked away. "I am only supposed to report back about your methodology. I don't think anyone cares about...other stuff."
"So I should release the prisoners from the basement?"
She swallowed. "Y-yeah. I mean, I would probably have to report that?" She almost looked apologetic. "You're...kidding? I thought your file said you couldn't do that. Make jokes."
"Many people say that when I try," he agreed seriously.
"That--okay, so that's wrong. God, is it so hard to get me updated information?" She looked annoyed, then looked back at the gene separator again. "So. When do we get started?"
"I have some preliminary thoughts on the files--ah, you should probably like to read them. I have them in the study. In the house. If you would be so kind as to follow me, I shall give them to you."
She did, but at a distance. Her mental presence was jumpy, like an overexcited kangaroo. Crossed with a deer confronted by headlights. Nathaniel went into his study and found the files. He gathered them up, along with his notes, and handed them over. "You may read my notes, if you like. Perhaps once you are caught up, we can discuss your thoughts."
She was too far away from him to take the file. The way she edged closer to him made him stifle a laugh. He resisted the urge to shake the papers at her. Barely. She reached out and grabbed them, then scampered away again. She looked down at them. Nathaniel noticed she didn't move, watched the way her gaze sharpened and focused as she read. It was remarkable, really, the change. He wondered what the poor girl would be doing, if it weren't for her fortunate run-in with the cosmic ray.
Possibly she'd be a supermarket checker. He coughed to hide his laugh, and waited politely, idly scanning the books in the shelves behind her. They were all classics. Did Stark think he sat around reading Great Expectations just because he'd lived in the same time as Charles Dickens? Probably.
"Are you staring at me?"
Startled, he looked back at her. It was the question that surprised him, merely her willingness to say it. "No. I was looking just to your left. The books, behind you. You shall get used to it, I am told. My having no pupils," he explained.
"Right. Okay. So I'm going to...do you have some food? I'm starving. I drove here from Atlanta and didn't stop for food. I was kind of nervous. I'm still kind of nervous, but I figure I better eat something or I'll faint, and then that would be silly, but I think maybe I could eat now if you have something else to do?"
There was a moment when Nathaniel realized the utter brilliance of Anthony Stark assigning Isobel Chambers as his assistant. There was no need for him to read her mind, because she said everything she thought anyway. There was no subtlety, no subterfuge to the girl. Unless it was all a trick. He scanned her mind, quickly, and found her to be just what she'd said. Nervous, hungry. She was scared of him, but intrigued by the research. She wanted to eat and then go to her room and take a shower and a nap, but she didn't think she could sleep. She wanted to look at the lab without him standing there and watching her. She hoped she didn't have to be around him that much. She thought his eyes were a pretty color red, and he had a nice voice. She was repeating the wording from his file, over and over--
Essex appears a gentleman and is exceedingly polite. Do not let that fool you--he is ruthless and utterly without compassion for anyone. Do not goad him and absolutely do not lower your guard, and try to engage him in moral arguments as little as possible as he is a moral relativist. Defending yourself against him physically is next to impossible, as he can heal from damage--go for the eyes to buy yourself a moment if escape is necessary and call SHIELD security immediately. Essex has only one known weakness--
Nathaniel started at that. His eyes narrowed. He was staring at her, now. A fact which she noticed.
"You're--you're definitely staring at me right now."
He nodded. "Go on," he said quietly, his voice a low, threatening purr. "My one weakness? What is it? According to the fine people at SHIELD."
"It's--not a what," Isobel said, just as quietly. "It's a--a who."
"Miss Chambers, I am perfectly prepared to be civil to you, to work with you, and to willingly accept your particular expertise in matters of genetics, as I can tell you are not lying about being very skilled in that area. I have no intention under heaven to lay a finger on you at at all. However, I should warn you, the file was correct. I am rather without compassion, and if you harm my one known weakness, I shall toss you into the river and turn my back on you while you drown. Are we quite clear?"
Well, that must have succeeded in terrifying her. She gave a slow nod, but she kept her gaze on his. "I don't hurt people, Dr. Essex," she said in a trembling whisper. "I help them. I would never hurt someone to get at someone else."
"You must not have worked for SHIELD long enough, then," he said, and looked away first. "I apologize if I frightened you. If you wish, I shall fix lunch. You may take it with you--I certainly do not require you to dance attendance upon me. I am quite content to be alone."
"It's...all right." She shrugged. "Got to get used to you, sometime." She gave a small, tentative laugh. "The eye thing. That'll--take some getting used to."
Nathaniel looked back at her, and shifted his eyes so that they appeared normal.
She shrieked and clapped her hand over her mouth.
"Not an improvement?"
She shook her head. About four times. Nathaniel shifted his eyes back to normal. "Do not say I did not try," he said, walking past her into the kitchen. He had to show her where everything was, so she did not mess it all up.