04 / 27 / 10 - Jean-Paul, Madrox
=XF= Roof - Residence - Chemeketa Military Base
Large and flat, the roof of the residences is hardly a triumph of aesthetics. There is a raised edge on which traveling flocks of pigeons perch and poop, and a wide expanse of pea gravel over tar is punctuated only by the metal of fan vents and the little hut holding the elevator machinery and the small metal staircase that provides rooftop access. It's a good place for quiet thought, just watch where you put your shoes.
It's damp on the roof, and there are clouds clearing away in the sky, but it isn't raining. That would be a little too noir. The air is cool and humid and the pebbles are darkened by the last of the rain, slowly drying. Jean-Paul stands at the edge of the roof, above his balcony -- a little farther from the edge than he would usually place himself.
Madrox has re-eschewed his attempts at perma-noir and left his trenchcoat behind. Prevent excess slogging again. He pulls the Jean-Paul - he rises from his second-floor balcony to loop up over that edge, only pausing when he sets down and (apparently belate) notices Jean-Paul not more than a few feet away. "Ah- hi."
Noticing Madrox rather sooner, Jean-Paul marks the ascension and landing with a twist of something sharp and wry in his glance. "Beats the stairs," he says.
"Yeah. Won't argue." Madrox, at this, pointedly sits on the edge, legs slung over. "Rough day, huh."
Tentative, Jean-Paul toes closer to the edge, and slowly eases into a seat of his own on the raised lip of masonry. "What do you think?" he asks. "Langley's family? Are they alive?"
"I don't know." Madrox's arms cross and settle over his chest. "I'm inclined to think so. Or that they were at the time of the call. They killed Peter to show they were serious. They could have killed the rest just as easily." He exhales. "Or they did kill the rest just as easily and are holding the bodies to draw us and poor Scott along. We don't want to play fair with them - I doubt they'll play fair with us."
Rubbing at the arch of his brow, Jean-Paul nods once. "That's what I -- thought," he says, pausing as he word swaps a common turn of phrase for something briefer, pointed. "They probably are alive. Which means...." He trails off, gesturing.
"If we take Tamara with us, if we honor the terms, do you really think they'll let her go back with us?" Madrox rattles it off, all a bit rapid.
"We haven't set terms," Jean-Paul says, opening his hand, but it is a delaying clarification. He addresses the question after a brief pause, blunt: "No. Not willingly. It may come down to a fight."
"Even so. I think it will." Madrox small-frowns into the darkness. "It would have been relatively easy to have made what happened permanent."
"By killing her?" Tipping his head forward, Jean-Paul says, "Yes, it would have. Unusual of them to spare someone -- but maybe they didn't because of her parents."
"Yes." Madrox's frown deepens. "Perhaps they didn't expect her compliance. Perhaps she's now a liability."
After only a moment, Jean-Paul shakes his head. "I don't think so. What she knows, we know, and that's little enough. Her mutation is more dangerous to us than to them. We're centrally gathered, all mutants -- while they are just willing to use them."
"But in a repeat performance, if they could manage it--" Madrox counter-shakes his head. "It doesn't matter. They're laying a trap, they know we know it's probably a trap. I think we are graduating to serious thorn in side. Who knows what that'll mean."
"They are laying a trap, but so are we," Jean-Paul says, glancing over at Madrox. His expression goes a little more tense as his voice cools. "There's a reason I pushed for a meeting: I want to get Tom into position to get a read on them. Find out what this Project Allergen is. Get anything else he can. Once she's restored us, we don't need to keep her. We can let her do what she wants -- and I hope that Tom can show her what they really do, make sure that she makes the right choice. But we need to keep Langley away from them."
"Yes." Madrox's head is canted mid-listen, and he follows it up with a belated nod. "Yeah, that's a good idea. The /only/ utility of her powers is screwing up little problems like us, and it's much less effective in pairs. But Langley's both a hostage and an all around power tool. I noticed they're not negotiating for him, though."
"Family connection," Jean-Paul suggests, with a slow frown. "Maybe her parents are important to them."
"That's my best guess." Madrox unfolds his arms to lift a hand. "Or maybe they only don't intend to /negotiate/ for Langley."
"You make me paranoid," Jean-Paul says with a low weariness as he rubs at the back of his neck.
"I am paranoid," Madrox owns, his voice a bit soft. "I don't like how blind we are about these people. I don't like that Peter's already dead."
"No." Quiet, Jean-Paul says, "Neither do I." He draws his legs up and shifts, folding them cross-legged. He braces his elbows on his knees, and leans over, chin braced in his hand. His posture, usually so controlled, so upright, is all slouchy-droopy. "Everything we've done, every bit of information that we have scraped together accounts to very little -- and too many have suffered already in our dealings with them."
"Every time we clash, we end up winning. In the sense that they strike a blow and we counter it and we pull out one of their agents, maybe." Madrox now lifts two hands, keeping one just lower than the other. "But they always make the first move. They're the proactive party. Why shouldn't they be? They're mobile and everywhere. We're fighting guerillas in the mountains from a set base. It's idiotic of us, if you think about it, and they know our weakness. Dead innocents."
"Not every time," Jean-Paul disagrees. Eyes closing, he says, "I am very tired of reacting. Of their calling us up to gloat, to demand, to threaten. Of them attacking us. We can't just pull people out one by one. They are too big. People are replaceable. But it is all we can do: worry at the edges of something we don't even know the scale of."
"And we could be a hornet bothering a jaguar for all we can tell." Madrox drops both hands, propping them on thighs. "Escalation. A few months ago, they capture a few of us, try to turn us. Now they scramble our powers. What's next?"
Jean-Paul makes a low, irritable noise and scrubs at his face. "Enough with the speculation. Just -- enough. We don't know. That's patently clear. We don't know anything about them for all the effort put into it. Speculation's to no point."
"All right." Madrox slants a look at Jean-Paul. "So maybe we meet, maybe we get lucky. Keep chasing our little threads. All right."
"And maybe everyone dies. /Enough/." Jean-Paul's tone sharpens, and when he backs off, it is into silence.
"I'm sorry." Madrox flattens it out. "I know it weighs on you particular."
Pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes, Jean-Paul says nothing for a moment and then, "I skied. That's all."
"I bungled into catching a terrorist. And if I'd been anyone else--" Madrox chuffs a laugh. "Why are we here, Jean-Paul?"
"Beats watching people fall down the bunny hill," Jean-Paul says, without laughter. He opens his hand in a gesture. "I couldn't ski any more, anyway."
"Beats grunt jobs and living on Twinkies," Madrox half echoes and angles his shoulders a bit slumped. "It's stupid that you can't ski any more."
"That's what they offered me," says Jean-Paul after a moment. "In Algiers: the chance to ski again; to compete. They could arrange things. Even if I could, I don't know if I would any more, knowing that there is this."
"You couldn't rebuild your career on someone else's blood," Madrox maybe-agrees, still quiet. "There are degrees of ruthlessness. Lines too easily crossed."
"No." Jean-Paul shakes his head. "Not that. I mean even if mutants could compete again -- not if they fixed it. Even if I could return guilt-free, I'd still know that I could be doing this, instead. Gold medal versus saving lives."
"I see." Madrox's eyes flick over to the horizon. "It'd seem to be a perfect job for that. Off complications and messiness aside."
"Mm," Jean-Paul agrees, and then glances over at Madrox expectantly.
Madrox seems to be pondering that horizon. Perhaps he forgot he was having a conversation. There we go. "The consequences are the hard part."
"How so?" Jean-Paul asks, his gaze lingering, but not overlong. He looks away again, gaze swept downward.
"What you said earlier. That other people suffer." Madrox is a bit toneless. "I don't have any family left to punish, but I wish we could contain the ripples."
A dark sardonicism sweeping his expression, Jean-Paul is quiet. "Well, when you figure out how. Let me know."
"I'm afraid I'm only ever good at making ripples. We'd have to," Madrox sketches a square with his hands, "decrease the size of the pond."
Rubbing his eyebrow with the side of his thumb, Jean-Paul says, "Your metaphors aren't so hot."
"I am inexpert at metaphors," Madrox says with a sigh. "I suppose we just have to get used to the human cost, all of that."
Wordless, Jean-Paul shakes his head. He's fairly clearly unhappy with that idea.
Madrox scants another look. "I wish we didn't have to. I wish there was some way to make sure that nothing we did ever wrongly impacted anyone else."
A faint smile twitches at Jean-Paul's lips, gently wry. There's a hint of 'touche' to his expression, as though Madrox has scored a point in some way. "Enough wishing. Enough maybes. Enough speculation," he says, low and even. "What is, is."
"Que sera." And Madrox looks back outward. "And what we are is what we are."
Jean-Paul glances from roof to balcony as though considering a jump, or perhaps a climb. Instead, he rocks back, swings his feet out and back in, and moves away from the edge. "I think I'm going to go brood where it's warmer," he says.
Madrox snaps his attention back with the rock, then clambers up himself. Lacks some grace. "Come now. You're a Canadian. You're betraying your old friend, the chill."
Hand rubbing along his shoulder, Jean-Paul gives a brief, tense smile. "The air is cool," he says, and crosses stiffly toward the /stairs/. Like a /penguin/. That can't /fly/.
Madrox stays standing where he is. Politely opting not to take off until Jean-Paul's fully departed.
Very polite of him. Jean-Paul disappears in short order.
Roof toppiness last night.