Acknowledgements
Erik Lensherr came to see me. Came to see me. Blacked out the entire office building to do so. Showy, profligate, casual power - I couldn't help a pang of covetous envy.
Then again, if I had access to that kind of power, I would have been outed a helluva long time before now.
He did that to me, to Melcross. And I'd bet my first million dollars that it was Emma who tipped him off.
Enemies. Not enemies. Goals aligning. What are his? What are mine?
I'll have to think about this. The Master of Magnetism does not show up in midtown Manhattan just to have a little chat, and there are other, better, safer ways to sound out opponents. Or potential allies. What is he up to?
Do wish I'd brought up the repair bills for the clubhouse's ballroom floor. Damn.
7/21/2005
Logfile from Shaw.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The business day is drawing to a close, ushering all but the most overscheduled (and/or Type A) workers from midtown Manhattan's business district. Most of the lights in the windows of one glass-and-stone building, one of the older ones on its block, have gone out, showing only dim illumination from hallways and shadows from the janitorial staff making their rounds. A receptionist still mans the moat-like desk in the sleek, shining, modern lobby, however, with tired but cool efficiency; she's distracting herself from boredom by watching the security cameras' feeds shining up out of flat-screen eyes at her dark and slender fingertips.
Although the general trend is the leave the business district at this time (families to have dinner with, dogs to walk, bars to slouch into) a few seem to be heading in the opposite direction along the sidewalk. Erik Lensherr is one of them. Fedora pressed low down over his brow, light-weight grey overcoat swishing around his ankles at a business-like pace, he glances upwards only once - cool eyes flicking over each building within easy sight. The last it settles upon is squinted at, and then it's glare back to the sidewalk. Within the building itself, something curious has happened. It's not even really cloudy outside, and every light, every security camera, every computer screen...everything operating on electricity has flickered, dimmed, and then, rather abruptly, shut off, leaving those last few illuminated rooms cloaked in shadow.
The receptionist reacts with growing, wakeful alarm as her information network simply -- fades out from under her. Putting one hand to the earpiece of her headset, she taps at buttons and toggles on her switchboard. Nothing. And upstairs, above the cold and dark marble box that the foyer has become, the remaining workers are trying to reach /her./ Or someone. Anyone. Nothing. Nothing at all.
If there were electronic locks on the doors, they aren't functioning any longer. Erik throws the first open rather as if he thinks he owns the place; chin lifted an an arrogant tilt, shoulders back. A glance is thrown to the receptionist, and not much more than that. He knows where he's going. Skipping the elevator, he heads for the stairwell.
Leaving the woman to catch back a cry of startlement in her hand's caging fingers, and try to push again and again for contact with the outer world, with the inner one. Still no good. The baffled workers above have started moving for the stairwells themselves -- a different one, on the other side of the building -- but at least one suite stays staffed and operating: 1605, on the sixteenth floor, where a secretary sits clutching her elbows and staring intently up at the dead lights as if that might revive them, and her boss is prowling in navy-pinstriped frustration up and down his office floor.
Sixteen levels would normally involve quite a few stairs to climb. Erik takes the first two or three flights by foot - taking time to make certain that nobody is already above him before each exit door for quite some ways upward is jammed shut from the inside. The last thirteen floors...well. Those are taken by foot as well. It is rather dark in the shaft, after all. It'd be tragic if he bumped his head on something trying to fly. Good thing he's in decent shape for an old man.
The secretary shifts her intent, silent urging from the lights to the closed office door, and bites her lip. In the gloom, only a darker shadow marks Sebastian Shaw's prowling: past the glass wall next to the door, disappearing behind its panel, and reappearing again with the next round. Once he stops and glares through the glass at her. She ducks her head as if from a blow and makes a good appearance of trying the phones once more, until the shadow's moved on. Surely things will be back to normal in a few moments, after all. /Surely./
Magneto's footfalls may or may not be audible towards that last flight - slow, even, and deliberate. The flat span reached, his hold on the doors released, Erik leans forward to open the one he can feel before him - blinking in the sudden change from no light to whatever dim amount has found its way onto the sixteenth floor. And he smiles. "Good evening, my dear."
She shrieks, pure and simple, but behind shock-clamped fleshy hands over her mouth, so the noise doesn't travel far. Above the hands, her brown eyes are all-around white, with the pupils shrunk to near-nothing even in the dimness. Her shoulders shake, but she doesn't otherwise move in her seat, not even to back away, except to whimper through her fingers: "P-please . . . don't h-h-hurt me . . . ? I seen you on th-the /news/--"
Magneto's smile twists along with his brows into a look that's far more patronizing and confident than anything - one leather-gloved hand lifting to unfold into a universal gesture of quietude before his mouth as he lets the door fall silently closed behind him. "Your alarm is truly flattering, but you needn't be concerned. Not today. Would you be so good as to inform your employer that I'd like to have a word?"
And so the secretary gulps, nods, and reaches for habit as her refuge. "Y-your name, sir? I mean--" a blush, another gulp "--who should I say is c-calling? D'you have an appointment?"
"Hrrmm..." The fedora taken from his head, Erik keeps a thoughtful eye on the secretary as he drops it into an unoccupied seat - shrugging carefully out of his overcoat and folding it neatly over one arm as he considers what really should have been a very straightforward question. "John Milton. I'm sure he'll understand." If the way this lady is panicking doesn't give it away, that is.
Especially because, since the electricity's still off, she actually has to get up and cross to the office door and knock and show her frightened moon face to the boss. "--the /hell/?" comes flatly out at the announcement, sending her scuttling back to the safety of her desk and leaving Shaw standing in the doorway in a fine and proper, if puzzled, snit. His gaze whips at Magneto. Narrows. Then, without looking away, he tells the secretary, "You can go home for the night, Flora. And not tell anyone anything, as per our agreement." She wavers, edging towards the exit, and he snaps, "He won't /bite/ you. Just /go./" And she does, with a flap of polyester and fear, vanishing down the stairwell without, no doubt, touching a single tread on the way.
Magneto steps politely aside to allow Flora to pass into the darkened stairwell behind him - his cool glare no more intending to move from Shaw's than Shaw's is to move from his. "Sebastian," is muttered by way of easy greeting, a half-smile accompanying the name as he drops his coat lazily over his hat.
Shaw smiles slightly back, though it's obviously forced. "Mr. Lensherr. What a surprise. Would you like to come in?" His gaze flips up to the lights. "I suppose this is your doing?"
Magneto, in his typical combination of dark dress shirt and darker black slacks, inclines his head just enough to indicate that yes, he would like to come in. "I'm afraid so. I thought it would be best if as little tangible evidence of this meeting as possible came into being. For your sake, of course." Isn't he nice?
Exceedingly. Shaw pushes open the office door with a stiff arm, pauses to consider his guest a heartbeat more, and then turns his back on him. "Come on in, then, please," trails back over his shoulder as he heads to his desk to shuffle through stacks of papers there. "The whole building? Helluva show. I'm impressed, and flattered by your courtesy. May I offer you a seat? Something to drink?"
Brows knit in a look that suggests, once again, flattery, Magneto can't help but look faintly smug as he lowers himself into a chair opposite the desk of Shaw's, that half-smile increasingly reminescent of a more comfortable smirk. "It was nothing. I daresay the real feat will have to be accomplished by your electrician." The offer for a drink is flatly ignored.
Shaw barks a short laugh. "No doubt. I'll leave that to the building manager. 'No, I have no idea what you're talking about. A power outage? Really? What a shame. Can't trust old wiring for anything anymore.'" He glances up from the papers with another little wry smile and then sinks into his chair, absently hooking fingers under his tie's knot to start loosening it. "To what do I owe this pleasant surprise, then? Looking to make some investments, perhaps?"
"Curiosity."
"I see." As simple, even stark, as Shaw unhooks the top button of his collar and leans back in a comfortable slouch. "How may I be of service to your questing, sir?"
Magneto's gloved hands flex out over the ends of their respective arm rests, the still new leather creaking against the strain before they settle - Erik's easy, leonine glare never once wavering from its target. "The names you mentioned within the bounds of our first meeting were not random selections."
Shaw's eyes narrow again in a considering frown. "Who -- oh. Yes. Miller and Frost?" His smile eases out like a lazy predator. "No, they weren't. I was, frankly, both fishing for reaction and fighting to preserve my precious hide -- with all due respect, Mr. Lensherr. I'm glad to be still here, not wrapped up in a metal pretzel."
"A comprehensable course of action to take, given the situation. You do have an unfortunate tendency to bring out the worst in me, Sebastian." Erik's own thin smile makes a slow return at that. It doesn't extend up into the ice of his glare. Not even close. "So I suppose, then, it was purely coincidence that the two names you opted to press upon me were both direct hits."
"I'm occasionally good at what I do," says Shaw calmly in reply, "especially under pressure in a dangerous situation. It's worth telling you, then, that I would not be using at least one of those names in such a manner, even to save that skin of mine." He disdains his chair's arms and just folds his hands against his shirt's crisp pale green. "Sabella Miller and I have severed ties, and well past time. No more need for us to clench out mutters to each other at private costume balls."
Magneto nods once, and slowly, accepting of the news, but outwardly unaffected by it. "Again, comprehensable. But it isn't Sabella Miller that concerns me." Again, there's a creak - this time from the chair as Erik draws himself up all the more. "What about this ... public face of yours, hm?"
Shaw's eyes spark merrily. "Do you watch The Today Show? I thought I was much better than Tom Cruise, although it's not a high bar to clear these days." His forefingers tap lightly together a couple times. "My public face, as you put it, has its uses," he finally says, more seriously. "Publicity is the primary one. Why do you ask?"
"Because you have never struck me as a coward, or a fool...but as is the case with most great lies, you have effectively placed yourself in a position to be brought to your corporate knees with an unpleasant truth." His eyes having narrowed slightly, Magneto simply takes Shaw in through the time it takes to draw his next breath - his glare careful. Measuring. "It seems an unecessary risk to take, particularly given the questionable moral caliber of a number of your...associates, shall we say."
"You refer, of course," says a courteous and casual Shaw, "to my mutation."
"Indeed."
"Well, then." Shaw taps his fingers again, his expression gravely lined above them. "So that we understand each other, sir -- and I do apologize if I brush too closely and abruptly to frankness -- may I ask if you're planning on doing anything about this risk I appear to be taking?"
Magneto doesn't answer immediately - the force behind his glare boring mercilessly into Shaw's across the narrow distance between them. Rasping and rending what little information it can from the lines of Shaw's face. "Perhaps against my better judgement...No. Not in the foreseeable future."
Unmoved, unfazed, Shaw inclines his head and smooths his hands down together again in loosely clasped harmony on his middle. "I appreciate it, and I applaud your judgment." Soft, that -- oh, so soft. "May I apply to it, in fact? You mentioned the moral caliber of my associates. If you have any opinions you might offer, I'd be even further in your debt, Mr. Lensherr."
"Mm." Erik has yet to move his hands - or much of the rest of himself, really. Statuesque he entered, and statuesque he remains, just relaxed enough to exude a level of confidence that's comfortably backed by the fading light they're currently seated in. "Forgive me, but I fail to see any real personal benefit in sharing more than I already have."
Shaw lets himself show gentle but unsurprised regret. "Of course, of course. I understand. I'm a businessman, after all. If I could make a deal with you, Mr. Lensherr, please be assured that I surely would. --About Emma Frost, then."
Magneto nods. "I came to satisfy my curiosity, Sebastian. Anything more than that will require far more consideration. My organization thrives on the kindness and support of other interested parties...therefore, I have other obligations and agreements to keep in mind. You understand, of course." Despite the genial half-smile that accompanies his words, it's very clear that they weren't meant to be questioning. Shaw understands, because Magneto says he does. And that's that. A pair of fingers lift at the, 'About Emma Frost,' - pairing with a slight inclination if his head to urge the Black King to continue.
Looking amused now, Shaw drags out, "I do understand, and I'm at your service, sir, as I've said. I haven't any wings for you to pluck for interrogatory encouragement, but I can do my best at answering your questions without that stimulus, I think. So. Emma," and he says the name quietly, intently, with hooded gaze pinned firmly to the older man's. "I picked a second correct name, that time in the park. I wonder . . . Is there money flowing from Frost's enterprises to yours?"
Magneto's brows twinge upward into a look that reads, quite clearly, 'I don't know. Is there?' "I am not at liberty to say. Again, I'm sure you understand. There -are- some news stories in the world that have the potential to be more commercially damaging than merely being outed as a mutant, Mr. Shaw." Pausing a beat to consider his phrasing, Erik relaxes his left hand over the rest once more. "Perhaps you should ask her yourself."
"I might," Shaw allows, and his thumbs twiddle briefly against each other. "I'd hate to see her get in trouble. --Or you, either, of course." A polite smile.
"Sebastian, I do not for a moment think you would enjoy anything more than squeezing the life out of her yourself. Please - spare me your innocence. If nothing else, your eyes should tell you that I was not born yesterday." For the first time, there's a faint edge that works its way in there - unbalance in the cool placidity that is Erik's low voice as the line of his mouth flattens.
Shaw whets an answering edge to his tone, though his gaze, his expression, his manner remains casually poised, not at all troubled. "You may think what you like, of course, but I'd beg you not to think that you know me at all, sir. Too many have, in the past. I'd refer you to them to study their experiences, but alas: gone." The fingers of one hand pfft demonstrably into the air, under a grimace of sadness. "You keep saying you're curious. I appreciate the trouble you've gone to, to get this meeting, so why don't we put fresh purpose to it and get to your questions?"
Magneto chuckles. Darkly, of course. "Questions, Sebastian? Whoever in their right mind would trust the answers to /questions/ given by a man as experienced in fronts as you?" His amusement fading, the look snarling in his glare nothing short of deadly, Erik leans slightly forward. "You take me for a fool and threaten me in the same breath. Does your life really mean so little?"
"Yes. Sometimes." Shaw looks fleetingly tired, haunted. "Does it matter? Are you going to end it? I might prefer it, if it came to that. I want to leave a mark on the world first, and I haven't done that yet, so I'd ask you to stay your hand -- but it's your decision, of course. Of course." Bitterness, narrow and acidic with impatience, etches the words into his rough-and-ready voice. "I'm not giving you a front right now. I'm being polite, that's all. Would you rather I stop that, too?"
Magneto settles back, expression even once more, save for the faint lift of one brow he offers for that look, however fleeting. He sees it in the mirror enough to recognize it without difficulty. "No, no. Contrary to popular belief, I much prefer the company of the living. Continue on with the manners."
"Thank you." Sardonic. Shaw breathes out short and soft, and in the lowering dusk, underlit by the distant pinpricks of streetlamps below and citylights around, he's all but invisible in his chair's shadow: only an intense and bulky presence, mastering his manners, indeed, with cruel control. "You're sure you don't want a drink? You must have had quite the trip to get down here."
"You're quite welcome, of course." They could be talking about tea for all Shaw's sardonic tone phases Magneto - the gentle line of his smirk perhaps fortunately masked by darkness. "I suppose that depends on what you have. But - moving back to Ms. Frost, if I can anticipate honesty in place of presuming to know you," Erik smiles, "How do the two of you know each other?"
"Bottled water, some kind of juice, I've forgotten what--" Shaw turns his head towards the mini-fridge in the corner of the office, then twitches his focus back to the guest, and the matter, at hand, irritated. "Ms. Frost and I had business dealings several years ago. It's a matter of public record, but I can offer you details. Even now, we keep in touch. Never know--" a ghost of humor rubs against his dark tone "--when past partners might become useful again. Wouldn't you say?"
Magneto maintains the faint line of his smile - appreciative of the humor, though nothing is said immediately in reply. "I'm not interested in your business relationship, Sebastian." Again, there's a pause. "She doesn't seem to care for you. And...indeed. I would."
Silence while Shaw considers. Then he trots out, with the merest veneer of mockery, "My personal relationship with her, then, sir? Goodness. I feel like I'm being interviewed as a prospective boyfriend by her father. I can give all kinds of details /there,/ only to get sternly chastised, I'm sure."
"As a boyfriend, Mr. Shaw, rest assured the lie that is your existence has already done more than enough to defeat any chance you might have had. I'm merely - and rightfully, I believe - interested in what I happen to be tampering with." Erik automatically turns his face from what little light the street below allows - masking his expression.
Shaw unconsciously leans forward, following that move, and a faint slant of citylight bands his face: curves of brow, cheek, and ear. More interested now, he pursues, "Are you tampering with me? Or her?"
"I have little to gain from 'tampering' with either of you. But less from you." Refusing, of course, a direct answer, Erik turns deliberately to bring the weight of his glare back around to bear on Shaw.
Shaw blinks mildly. "I've been stared at by worse than you, Mr. Lensherr; it really does just bounce off me. Water? Juice?"
"No alcohol? I'm disappointed." Just smiling faintly to himself, Erik doesn't redirect his gaze. "You aren't holding out on me, are you Sebastian?"
"Endlessly," smiles Sebastian. "But in truth, I don't have any alcohol here. I'm on a health kick lately; I regret we'll both have to suffer through it."
Magneto sighs. Very drawn out. Very dramatic. "I suppose so. Now, you wanted me to ask questions. I've asked one. Are you going to answer it or not?"
"Well, let's see," and Shaw pushes himself up and out of his chair. He crosses to the mini-fridge, crouches to dig into it, and continues from there, "I said I could offer you details -- that's what you want? I'm afraid you'll have to be a little specific in your question, and cut my beleaguered memory a little slack, too, if I don't have exactly what you want." He stands. Returns to the desk. Offers one of those water bottles. "I've had a long month, but I can do my best."
"Specifically, I am interested in knowing why she might have reason to be wary of you. I do appreciate details, so long as they are relegated to events occuring outside of the bedroom." Pausing a moment to consider anything further, Erik lifts his brows, still watching Shaw's unoccupied chair rather than following the man with his eyes. "I suppose that's it, for the moment."
Politely Shaw leaves the water bottle on the desk's edge, to stand in chill, slightly sweating translucent splendor in the faint window-light. He pops open his and takes a drink on the way back into his chair. "'That's it,'" he repeats heavily. "Oh, certainly. Why would Emma Frost be wary of me? For my charm and good looks, naturally. She's such a vain creature, you know. --No. I couldn't say, really." He rubs the bottle over his brow, sighs. "I used to threaten a buyout of her fledgling corporation, but that was years ago, and it was almost always bluffing. I haven't any such designs on her now; I have other interests, separate from hers, and no desire to be so entangled again -- boardroom /or/ bedroom, in case it matters."
Magneto tilts a brow in tired concession of Shaw's simple answer for that, and a few seconds later, the topic is abandoned in its entirety - his posturing broken long enough to reach for the water. "So, Sebastian. Originally, you approached me. Was there something specific that you were interested in? Or were you simply curious?"
"The latter. Sounding you out -- much as you're doing now," Shaw points out pleasantly, testing the waters with a faintly inquisitive ripple to the edges of his words coming out of the dark sink of his shadowed chair. "I did consider you a potential ally, for future plans that have come to naught, but I'm not averse to keeping the lines of communication open. What does Emma's mutant status matter?"
"Tch. I thought you were a human at the time. I could have killed you." 'Idiot.' Magneto does not actually say, though the thought is heavily implied as the water bottle rolls from one hand to the other. Shoulders still far too rigid as he sits back, it's through narrowed eyes that he watches Shaw at his most recent question. "I'm not entirely certain. Regarding lines of communication, however - neither am I."
Shaw's grin is more visible in tone than in actual expression. "A human? Marvelous. I can pass so well," he mocks, self-mocks. "See, another reason for my 'public face': I love a good underestimation from my enemies. Are we?"
"And a bigot. You are fortunate to have chosen the names that you did." Much the same in tone, Erik directs his close-mouthed smile down at the water bottle whose condensation happens to be soaking his right hand. "Enemies? Perhaps. But even enemies may have their goals aligned from time to time."
"Granted. And thank you again, by the way, for not killing me. Getting out of the twisted mess of that bench was bad enough." Shaw pauses with the water bottle on its way up. It hovers a moment, caught in the flex of intuition's leap, and then he lowers it again. "Did Emma tell you that I'm a mutant? Is that how you knew, to tell Sabitha Melcross?"
"Aah. She /is/ aware of your mutation, then." Chuckling quietly to himself, Erik doesn't look up again, keeping with the darkness and security offered by the deep night shadows that dominate the office. "How many do know, Sebastian? There can't be many."
Shaw chuckles, too. "Damn those telepaths," is all he says, though rather tighter than he might've liked. "How many know you make excursions into the city, Erik?"
Magneto's smile stays through the tightness, though the contour of his face, backlit by reflected light as it is, exposes a twinge of brow that's not entirely pleased as the questions continue. "Too many, I suspect."
"Exactly." Shaw nods. "Too many secrets, but some not secret enough. 'Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.'" With the quote, softly and pensively rendered, he too cups his water bottle and regards its half-emptied slosh. "All the more need for communication and -- if not trust, then recognition. Acknowledgement. I'm not asking about your goals. I'm not offering up my own. But," and he leaves that suggestion hanging, quiet, in the dark between them.
Magneto says nothing - the rustle of cloth against cloth the only audible indication that he's still there, pushing up out of the chair and onto his feet, the unopened bottle set carefully back upon the corner of Shaw's desk. "Consider yourself acknowledged, Sebastian."
Shaw's voice rises, still quiet, from his shadows. "May I make a request before you go?"
Magneto's silence isn't as indicative of his answer as his posture as he turns to face the younger man more completely, expression unreadable. Waiting.
Leaning forward, Shaw sets his water bottle precisely centered on the desk and folds his hands behind it into a single broad, sinewy fist. Dim light catches at the slick of eyes, teeth. "Please don't use my secret as if it were your own. It isn't. And I'll see what I can do about the electricians."
In lue of writing down his phone number for Shaw to take advantage of, Erik produces what appears to be a business card, dropping it flatly next to his own water bottle before excusing himself with a nod and turning to leave. "Of course. In return, I ask that you stock your office with something worth drinking before we have an opportunity to speak again."
The card disappears under his hands, and Shaw is all cordiality with the faintest edge of apology, or else reproach. "Of course," he repeats to that turn, that departure. "Forgive my poor hospitality. Would you like me to remember you to Emma?"
That question more than enough to stop Erik in the doorway, it isn't quite enough to turn him back around. He simply pauses for a moment - considering. "If it isn't too much trouble." And then he's moving carefully past the front desk to collect his hat and coat, the stairwell door creaking open and then closing a few seconds later.
[Log ends.]
Then again, if I had access to that kind of power, I would have been outed a helluva long time before now.
He did that to me, to Melcross. And I'd bet my first million dollars that it was Emma who tipped him off.
Enemies. Not enemies. Goals aligning. What are his? What are mine?
I'll have to think about this. The Master of Magnetism does not show up in midtown Manhattan just to have a little chat, and there are other, better, safer ways to sound out opponents. Or potential allies. What is he up to?
Do wish I'd brought up the repair bills for the clubhouse's ballroom floor. Damn.
7/21/2005
Logfile from Shaw.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The business day is drawing to a close, ushering all but the most overscheduled (and/or Type A) workers from midtown Manhattan's business district. Most of the lights in the windows of one glass-and-stone building, one of the older ones on its block, have gone out, showing only dim illumination from hallways and shadows from the janitorial staff making their rounds. A receptionist still mans the moat-like desk in the sleek, shining, modern lobby, however, with tired but cool efficiency; she's distracting herself from boredom by watching the security cameras' feeds shining up out of flat-screen eyes at her dark and slender fingertips.
Although the general trend is the leave the business district at this time (families to have dinner with, dogs to walk, bars to slouch into) a few seem to be heading in the opposite direction along the sidewalk. Erik Lensherr is one of them. Fedora pressed low down over his brow, light-weight grey overcoat swishing around his ankles at a business-like pace, he glances upwards only once - cool eyes flicking over each building within easy sight. The last it settles upon is squinted at, and then it's glare back to the sidewalk. Within the building itself, something curious has happened. It's not even really cloudy outside, and every light, every security camera, every computer screen...everything operating on electricity has flickered, dimmed, and then, rather abruptly, shut off, leaving those last few illuminated rooms cloaked in shadow.
The receptionist reacts with growing, wakeful alarm as her information network simply -- fades out from under her. Putting one hand to the earpiece of her headset, she taps at buttons and toggles on her switchboard. Nothing. And upstairs, above the cold and dark marble box that the foyer has become, the remaining workers are trying to reach /her./ Or someone. Anyone. Nothing. Nothing at all.
If there were electronic locks on the doors, they aren't functioning any longer. Erik throws the first open rather as if he thinks he owns the place; chin lifted an an arrogant tilt, shoulders back. A glance is thrown to the receptionist, and not much more than that. He knows where he's going. Skipping the elevator, he heads for the stairwell.
Leaving the woman to catch back a cry of startlement in her hand's caging fingers, and try to push again and again for contact with the outer world, with the inner one. Still no good. The baffled workers above have started moving for the stairwells themselves -- a different one, on the other side of the building -- but at least one suite stays staffed and operating: 1605, on the sixteenth floor, where a secretary sits clutching her elbows and staring intently up at the dead lights as if that might revive them, and her boss is prowling in navy-pinstriped frustration up and down his office floor.
Sixteen levels would normally involve quite a few stairs to climb. Erik takes the first two or three flights by foot - taking time to make certain that nobody is already above him before each exit door for quite some ways upward is jammed shut from the inside. The last thirteen floors...well. Those are taken by foot as well. It is rather dark in the shaft, after all. It'd be tragic if he bumped his head on something trying to fly. Good thing he's in decent shape for an old man.
The secretary shifts her intent, silent urging from the lights to the closed office door, and bites her lip. In the gloom, only a darker shadow marks Sebastian Shaw's prowling: past the glass wall next to the door, disappearing behind its panel, and reappearing again with the next round. Once he stops and glares through the glass at her. She ducks her head as if from a blow and makes a good appearance of trying the phones once more, until the shadow's moved on. Surely things will be back to normal in a few moments, after all. /Surely./
Magneto's footfalls may or may not be audible towards that last flight - slow, even, and deliberate. The flat span reached, his hold on the doors released, Erik leans forward to open the one he can feel before him - blinking in the sudden change from no light to whatever dim amount has found its way onto the sixteenth floor. And he smiles. "Good evening, my dear."
She shrieks, pure and simple, but behind shock-clamped fleshy hands over her mouth, so the noise doesn't travel far. Above the hands, her brown eyes are all-around white, with the pupils shrunk to near-nothing even in the dimness. Her shoulders shake, but she doesn't otherwise move in her seat, not even to back away, except to whimper through her fingers: "P-please . . . don't h-h-hurt me . . . ? I seen you on th-the /news/--"
Magneto's smile twists along with his brows into a look that's far more patronizing and confident than anything - one leather-gloved hand lifting to unfold into a universal gesture of quietude before his mouth as he lets the door fall silently closed behind him. "Your alarm is truly flattering, but you needn't be concerned. Not today. Would you be so good as to inform your employer that I'd like to have a word?"
And so the secretary gulps, nods, and reaches for habit as her refuge. "Y-your name, sir? I mean--" a blush, another gulp "--who should I say is c-calling? D'you have an appointment?"
"Hrrmm..." The fedora taken from his head, Erik keeps a thoughtful eye on the secretary as he drops it into an unoccupied seat - shrugging carefully out of his overcoat and folding it neatly over one arm as he considers what really should have been a very straightforward question. "John Milton. I'm sure he'll understand." If the way this lady is panicking doesn't give it away, that is.
Especially because, since the electricity's still off, she actually has to get up and cross to the office door and knock and show her frightened moon face to the boss. "--the /hell/?" comes flatly out at the announcement, sending her scuttling back to the safety of her desk and leaving Shaw standing in the doorway in a fine and proper, if puzzled, snit. His gaze whips at Magneto. Narrows. Then, without looking away, he tells the secretary, "You can go home for the night, Flora. And not tell anyone anything, as per our agreement." She wavers, edging towards the exit, and he snaps, "He won't /bite/ you. Just /go./" And she does, with a flap of polyester and fear, vanishing down the stairwell without, no doubt, touching a single tread on the way.
Magneto steps politely aside to allow Flora to pass into the darkened stairwell behind him - his cool glare no more intending to move from Shaw's than Shaw's is to move from his. "Sebastian," is muttered by way of easy greeting, a half-smile accompanying the name as he drops his coat lazily over his hat.
Shaw smiles slightly back, though it's obviously forced. "Mr. Lensherr. What a surprise. Would you like to come in?" His gaze flips up to the lights. "I suppose this is your doing?"
Magneto, in his typical combination of dark dress shirt and darker black slacks, inclines his head just enough to indicate that yes, he would like to come in. "I'm afraid so. I thought it would be best if as little tangible evidence of this meeting as possible came into being. For your sake, of course." Isn't he nice?
Exceedingly. Shaw pushes open the office door with a stiff arm, pauses to consider his guest a heartbeat more, and then turns his back on him. "Come on in, then, please," trails back over his shoulder as he heads to his desk to shuffle through stacks of papers there. "The whole building? Helluva show. I'm impressed, and flattered by your courtesy. May I offer you a seat? Something to drink?"
Brows knit in a look that suggests, once again, flattery, Magneto can't help but look faintly smug as he lowers himself into a chair opposite the desk of Shaw's, that half-smile increasingly reminescent of a more comfortable smirk. "It was nothing. I daresay the real feat will have to be accomplished by your electrician." The offer for a drink is flatly ignored.
Shaw barks a short laugh. "No doubt. I'll leave that to the building manager. 'No, I have no idea what you're talking about. A power outage? Really? What a shame. Can't trust old wiring for anything anymore.'" He glances up from the papers with another little wry smile and then sinks into his chair, absently hooking fingers under his tie's knot to start loosening it. "To what do I owe this pleasant surprise, then? Looking to make some investments, perhaps?"
"Curiosity."
"I see." As simple, even stark, as Shaw unhooks the top button of his collar and leans back in a comfortable slouch. "How may I be of service to your questing, sir?"
Magneto's gloved hands flex out over the ends of their respective arm rests, the still new leather creaking against the strain before they settle - Erik's easy, leonine glare never once wavering from its target. "The names you mentioned within the bounds of our first meeting were not random selections."
Shaw's eyes narrow again in a considering frown. "Who -- oh. Yes. Miller and Frost?" His smile eases out like a lazy predator. "No, they weren't. I was, frankly, both fishing for reaction and fighting to preserve my precious hide -- with all due respect, Mr. Lensherr. I'm glad to be still here, not wrapped up in a metal pretzel."
"A comprehensable course of action to take, given the situation. You do have an unfortunate tendency to bring out the worst in me, Sebastian." Erik's own thin smile makes a slow return at that. It doesn't extend up into the ice of his glare. Not even close. "So I suppose, then, it was purely coincidence that the two names you opted to press upon me were both direct hits."
"I'm occasionally good at what I do," says Shaw calmly in reply, "especially under pressure in a dangerous situation. It's worth telling you, then, that I would not be using at least one of those names in such a manner, even to save that skin of mine." He disdains his chair's arms and just folds his hands against his shirt's crisp pale green. "Sabella Miller and I have severed ties, and well past time. No more need for us to clench out mutters to each other at private costume balls."
Magneto nods once, and slowly, accepting of the news, but outwardly unaffected by it. "Again, comprehensable. But it isn't Sabella Miller that concerns me." Again, there's a creak - this time from the chair as Erik draws himself up all the more. "What about this ... public face of yours, hm?"
Shaw's eyes spark merrily. "Do you watch The Today Show? I thought I was much better than Tom Cruise, although it's not a high bar to clear these days." His forefingers tap lightly together a couple times. "My public face, as you put it, has its uses," he finally says, more seriously. "Publicity is the primary one. Why do you ask?"
"Because you have never struck me as a coward, or a fool...but as is the case with most great lies, you have effectively placed yourself in a position to be brought to your corporate knees with an unpleasant truth." His eyes having narrowed slightly, Magneto simply takes Shaw in through the time it takes to draw his next breath - his glare careful. Measuring. "It seems an unecessary risk to take, particularly given the questionable moral caliber of a number of your...associates, shall we say."
"You refer, of course," says a courteous and casual Shaw, "to my mutation."
"Indeed."
"Well, then." Shaw taps his fingers again, his expression gravely lined above them. "So that we understand each other, sir -- and I do apologize if I brush too closely and abruptly to frankness -- may I ask if you're planning on doing anything about this risk I appear to be taking?"
Magneto doesn't answer immediately - the force behind his glare boring mercilessly into Shaw's across the narrow distance between them. Rasping and rending what little information it can from the lines of Shaw's face. "Perhaps against my better judgement...No. Not in the foreseeable future."
Unmoved, unfazed, Shaw inclines his head and smooths his hands down together again in loosely clasped harmony on his middle. "I appreciate it, and I applaud your judgment." Soft, that -- oh, so soft. "May I apply to it, in fact? You mentioned the moral caliber of my associates. If you have any opinions you might offer, I'd be even further in your debt, Mr. Lensherr."
"Mm." Erik has yet to move his hands - or much of the rest of himself, really. Statuesque he entered, and statuesque he remains, just relaxed enough to exude a level of confidence that's comfortably backed by the fading light they're currently seated in. "Forgive me, but I fail to see any real personal benefit in sharing more than I already have."
Shaw lets himself show gentle but unsurprised regret. "Of course, of course. I understand. I'm a businessman, after all. If I could make a deal with you, Mr. Lensherr, please be assured that I surely would. --About Emma Frost, then."
Magneto nods. "I came to satisfy my curiosity, Sebastian. Anything more than that will require far more consideration. My organization thrives on the kindness and support of other interested parties...therefore, I have other obligations and agreements to keep in mind. You understand, of course." Despite the genial half-smile that accompanies his words, it's very clear that they weren't meant to be questioning. Shaw understands, because Magneto says he does. And that's that. A pair of fingers lift at the, 'About Emma Frost,' - pairing with a slight inclination if his head to urge the Black King to continue.
Looking amused now, Shaw drags out, "I do understand, and I'm at your service, sir, as I've said. I haven't any wings for you to pluck for interrogatory encouragement, but I can do my best at answering your questions without that stimulus, I think. So. Emma," and he says the name quietly, intently, with hooded gaze pinned firmly to the older man's. "I picked a second correct name, that time in the park. I wonder . . . Is there money flowing from Frost's enterprises to yours?"
Magneto's brows twinge upward into a look that reads, quite clearly, 'I don't know. Is there?' "I am not at liberty to say. Again, I'm sure you understand. There -are- some news stories in the world that have the potential to be more commercially damaging than merely being outed as a mutant, Mr. Shaw." Pausing a beat to consider his phrasing, Erik relaxes his left hand over the rest once more. "Perhaps you should ask her yourself."
"I might," Shaw allows, and his thumbs twiddle briefly against each other. "I'd hate to see her get in trouble. --Or you, either, of course." A polite smile.
"Sebastian, I do not for a moment think you would enjoy anything more than squeezing the life out of her yourself. Please - spare me your innocence. If nothing else, your eyes should tell you that I was not born yesterday." For the first time, there's a faint edge that works its way in there - unbalance in the cool placidity that is Erik's low voice as the line of his mouth flattens.
Shaw whets an answering edge to his tone, though his gaze, his expression, his manner remains casually poised, not at all troubled. "You may think what you like, of course, but I'd beg you not to think that you know me at all, sir. Too many have, in the past. I'd refer you to them to study their experiences, but alas: gone." The fingers of one hand pfft demonstrably into the air, under a grimace of sadness. "You keep saying you're curious. I appreciate the trouble you've gone to, to get this meeting, so why don't we put fresh purpose to it and get to your questions?"
Magneto chuckles. Darkly, of course. "Questions, Sebastian? Whoever in their right mind would trust the answers to /questions/ given by a man as experienced in fronts as you?" His amusement fading, the look snarling in his glare nothing short of deadly, Erik leans slightly forward. "You take me for a fool and threaten me in the same breath. Does your life really mean so little?"
"Yes. Sometimes." Shaw looks fleetingly tired, haunted. "Does it matter? Are you going to end it? I might prefer it, if it came to that. I want to leave a mark on the world first, and I haven't done that yet, so I'd ask you to stay your hand -- but it's your decision, of course. Of course." Bitterness, narrow and acidic with impatience, etches the words into his rough-and-ready voice. "I'm not giving you a front right now. I'm being polite, that's all. Would you rather I stop that, too?"
Magneto settles back, expression even once more, save for the faint lift of one brow he offers for that look, however fleeting. He sees it in the mirror enough to recognize it without difficulty. "No, no. Contrary to popular belief, I much prefer the company of the living. Continue on with the manners."
"Thank you." Sardonic. Shaw breathes out short and soft, and in the lowering dusk, underlit by the distant pinpricks of streetlamps below and citylights around, he's all but invisible in his chair's shadow: only an intense and bulky presence, mastering his manners, indeed, with cruel control. "You're sure you don't want a drink? You must have had quite the trip to get down here."
"You're quite welcome, of course." They could be talking about tea for all Shaw's sardonic tone phases Magneto - the gentle line of his smirk perhaps fortunately masked by darkness. "I suppose that depends on what you have. But - moving back to Ms. Frost, if I can anticipate honesty in place of presuming to know you," Erik smiles, "How do the two of you know each other?"
"Bottled water, some kind of juice, I've forgotten what--" Shaw turns his head towards the mini-fridge in the corner of the office, then twitches his focus back to the guest, and the matter, at hand, irritated. "Ms. Frost and I had business dealings several years ago. It's a matter of public record, but I can offer you details. Even now, we keep in touch. Never know--" a ghost of humor rubs against his dark tone "--when past partners might become useful again. Wouldn't you say?"
Magneto maintains the faint line of his smile - appreciative of the humor, though nothing is said immediately in reply. "I'm not interested in your business relationship, Sebastian." Again, there's a pause. "She doesn't seem to care for you. And...indeed. I would."
Silence while Shaw considers. Then he trots out, with the merest veneer of mockery, "My personal relationship with her, then, sir? Goodness. I feel like I'm being interviewed as a prospective boyfriend by her father. I can give all kinds of details /there,/ only to get sternly chastised, I'm sure."
"As a boyfriend, Mr. Shaw, rest assured the lie that is your existence has already done more than enough to defeat any chance you might have had. I'm merely - and rightfully, I believe - interested in what I happen to be tampering with." Erik automatically turns his face from what little light the street below allows - masking his expression.
Shaw unconsciously leans forward, following that move, and a faint slant of citylight bands his face: curves of brow, cheek, and ear. More interested now, he pursues, "Are you tampering with me? Or her?"
"I have little to gain from 'tampering' with either of you. But less from you." Refusing, of course, a direct answer, Erik turns deliberately to bring the weight of his glare back around to bear on Shaw.
Shaw blinks mildly. "I've been stared at by worse than you, Mr. Lensherr; it really does just bounce off me. Water? Juice?"
"No alcohol? I'm disappointed." Just smiling faintly to himself, Erik doesn't redirect his gaze. "You aren't holding out on me, are you Sebastian?"
"Endlessly," smiles Sebastian. "But in truth, I don't have any alcohol here. I'm on a health kick lately; I regret we'll both have to suffer through it."
Magneto sighs. Very drawn out. Very dramatic. "I suppose so. Now, you wanted me to ask questions. I've asked one. Are you going to answer it or not?"
"Well, let's see," and Shaw pushes himself up and out of his chair. He crosses to the mini-fridge, crouches to dig into it, and continues from there, "I said I could offer you details -- that's what you want? I'm afraid you'll have to be a little specific in your question, and cut my beleaguered memory a little slack, too, if I don't have exactly what you want." He stands. Returns to the desk. Offers one of those water bottles. "I've had a long month, but I can do my best."
"Specifically, I am interested in knowing why she might have reason to be wary of you. I do appreciate details, so long as they are relegated to events occuring outside of the bedroom." Pausing a moment to consider anything further, Erik lifts his brows, still watching Shaw's unoccupied chair rather than following the man with his eyes. "I suppose that's it, for the moment."
Politely Shaw leaves the water bottle on the desk's edge, to stand in chill, slightly sweating translucent splendor in the faint window-light. He pops open his and takes a drink on the way back into his chair. "'That's it,'" he repeats heavily. "Oh, certainly. Why would Emma Frost be wary of me? For my charm and good looks, naturally. She's such a vain creature, you know. --No. I couldn't say, really." He rubs the bottle over his brow, sighs. "I used to threaten a buyout of her fledgling corporation, but that was years ago, and it was almost always bluffing. I haven't any such designs on her now; I have other interests, separate from hers, and no desire to be so entangled again -- boardroom /or/ bedroom, in case it matters."
Magneto tilts a brow in tired concession of Shaw's simple answer for that, and a few seconds later, the topic is abandoned in its entirety - his posturing broken long enough to reach for the water. "So, Sebastian. Originally, you approached me. Was there something specific that you were interested in? Or were you simply curious?"
"The latter. Sounding you out -- much as you're doing now," Shaw points out pleasantly, testing the waters with a faintly inquisitive ripple to the edges of his words coming out of the dark sink of his shadowed chair. "I did consider you a potential ally, for future plans that have come to naught, but I'm not averse to keeping the lines of communication open. What does Emma's mutant status matter?"
"Tch. I thought you were a human at the time. I could have killed you." 'Idiot.' Magneto does not actually say, though the thought is heavily implied as the water bottle rolls from one hand to the other. Shoulders still far too rigid as he sits back, it's through narrowed eyes that he watches Shaw at his most recent question. "I'm not entirely certain. Regarding lines of communication, however - neither am I."
Shaw's grin is more visible in tone than in actual expression. "A human? Marvelous. I can pass so well," he mocks, self-mocks. "See, another reason for my 'public face': I love a good underestimation from my enemies. Are we?"
"And a bigot. You are fortunate to have chosen the names that you did." Much the same in tone, Erik directs his close-mouthed smile down at the water bottle whose condensation happens to be soaking his right hand. "Enemies? Perhaps. But even enemies may have their goals aligned from time to time."
"Granted. And thank you again, by the way, for not killing me. Getting out of the twisted mess of that bench was bad enough." Shaw pauses with the water bottle on its way up. It hovers a moment, caught in the flex of intuition's leap, and then he lowers it again. "Did Emma tell you that I'm a mutant? Is that how you knew, to tell Sabitha Melcross?"
"Aah. She /is/ aware of your mutation, then." Chuckling quietly to himself, Erik doesn't look up again, keeping with the darkness and security offered by the deep night shadows that dominate the office. "How many do know, Sebastian? There can't be many."
Shaw chuckles, too. "Damn those telepaths," is all he says, though rather tighter than he might've liked. "How many know you make excursions into the city, Erik?"
Magneto's smile stays through the tightness, though the contour of his face, backlit by reflected light as it is, exposes a twinge of brow that's not entirely pleased as the questions continue. "Too many, I suspect."
"Exactly." Shaw nods. "Too many secrets, but some not secret enough. 'Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.'" With the quote, softly and pensively rendered, he too cups his water bottle and regards its half-emptied slosh. "All the more need for communication and -- if not trust, then recognition. Acknowledgement. I'm not asking about your goals. I'm not offering up my own. But," and he leaves that suggestion hanging, quiet, in the dark between them.
Magneto says nothing - the rustle of cloth against cloth the only audible indication that he's still there, pushing up out of the chair and onto his feet, the unopened bottle set carefully back upon the corner of Shaw's desk. "Consider yourself acknowledged, Sebastian."
Shaw's voice rises, still quiet, from his shadows. "May I make a request before you go?"
Magneto's silence isn't as indicative of his answer as his posture as he turns to face the younger man more completely, expression unreadable. Waiting.
Leaning forward, Shaw sets his water bottle precisely centered on the desk and folds his hands behind it into a single broad, sinewy fist. Dim light catches at the slick of eyes, teeth. "Please don't use my secret as if it were your own. It isn't. And I'll see what I can do about the electricians."
In lue of writing down his phone number for Shaw to take advantage of, Erik produces what appears to be a business card, dropping it flatly next to his own water bottle before excusing himself with a nod and turning to leave. "Of course. In return, I ask that you stock your office with something worth drinking before we have an opportunity to speak again."
The card disappears under his hands, and Shaw is all cordiality with the faintest edge of apology, or else reproach. "Of course," he repeats to that turn, that departure. "Forgive my poor hospitality. Would you like me to remember you to Emma?"
That question more than enough to stop Erik in the doorway, it isn't quite enough to turn him back around. He simply pauses for a moment - considering. "If it isn't too much trouble." And then he's moving carefully past the front desk to collect his hat and coat, the stairwell door creaking open and then closing a few seconds later.
[Log ends.]