7118/Dollhouse: Colonel Talbot

Dollhouse: Colonel Talbot
Date of Scene:	28 July 2021
Location:	The Playground and The Triskelion
Synopsis:	Phil reaches out to Colonel Talbot. Giving him a polite heads up that something big is about to go down, a connection is made and the starts of trust are built.
Cast of Characters:	Phil Coulson, Bobbi Morse

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Phil Coulson has posed:
Restless. Restive.

Phil's not used to it; being introspective. It's been too long a career, and there's no end in sight, thankfully. Just a change of duty. Most of his duty 'these days' is behind a desk, pushing paper, making morning briefings, afternoon briefings and evening debriefings.

Occassionally he even makes executive decisions in the best interests of what he still considers 'his' people. There are few who would gainsay him, and most take it on faith that Phil actually knows what he's doing. Sadly, there are days now that he's beginning to question himself.

Trust the system, right?

It's what he's used to, that mantra. And doing this, getting everything in line so his people can fight the good fight, well.. it's the least he can do.

Phil Coulson sits behind his desk, papers neatly stacked to the side giving it the appearance of a someone active office. He's got suit and tie on, tailored jacket, white shirt, blue and yellow striped tie. He looks neat, kempt and mostly well rested; only his closest associates could (or would?) discern the hints of sleeplessness.

Work is what keeps the man going, though. So when sleep doesn't come, there is work.

He has an air of confidence, one borne of experience and ease of leadership as he reaches for a well placed tablet to poke at it, thus both letting the techs know that he's ready for connect and, well.. for the actual connection. Once done, he props it up on a brass lamp. A small screen will do for this.

Soon enough, Phil's face and some of the be-suited shoulders (and tie knot, a single Windsor) should appear upon Colonel Talbot's phone, with a courtesy ring, even though he won't be able to refuse the call.

"Colonel Talbot," Phil begins, "we need to talk."

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    An entire career of valour and honour hangs in the balance. Talbot has Hale dead to rights. She ordered an attempt on his life and she had HYDRA agents planted in his units. He suspected something was off from day one of this operation but he still intended to do his duty.

    And yet, when it came time to finally arrest some of SHIELD, he let them go. Truthfully, he had a base erupting in to chaos but still. He made a call that could cost him his job, his life. The unexpected call from sources unknown casts a dark frown over his features. He answers.

    "This is a secure line, using it is treason." He points a finger at the talking head on his screen and says, "I know you. You're Phil Coulson. You're meant to be dead. Is nothing sacred any more. How did you get this number. Don't answer that."

    He turns his back to the screen and tucks his hands behind his back. It's a power move. "You people have a lot of nerve contacting me again after I let you go. Make no mistake, I will find you." He turns, "All of you."

    Wearing his blue uniform of the US Air Force, Colonel Glenn Talbot has a well manicured moustache and short cropped hair. Their psych profile on him says he likes to be right and that he's as straight an arrow as they come. It's why they concluded he wasn't HYDRA in the first place, why they decided he could be leaned on. A wife and child, his priorities are Country, Family, Self.

Phil Coulson has posed:
Phil lets the Colonel finish his opening salvo, his inscrutible expression neatly in place. There's nothing to suggest where he is; and judging from the hint of cinderblock that is Phil's back wall, he certainly isn't in the grounded Bus. That should give the hint that this isn't some grandious plan, some posturing complete with puff and ruffle.

"And yet here we are, Colonel." It's a straight line, a serious one, though one that should lend some gravity of 'no stuff, there we were' for stories in ten years. Assuming they live that long.

"Yes, sir, I have no doubt. But, in the meantime, I'm going to need to ask you for a favor." How that's going to sit, Phil's not entirely sure, but given what he knows of the man? He'll may at least get a hearing out.

"You're a good man, a loyal officer. I'm telling you that we're getting closer to busting a major HYDRA op." Phil resists the urge to lean forward, and he lays some of his hand on the table. Or at least mixing it up a little. So he'll add the sin of omission to his long laundry list.

"I need you to trust us once more."

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    The moustache positively bristles as Phil asks him for a favour. Apoplectic was a word invented for just these kinds of moments. "You must be out of your god damned mind Coulson," he says as he lays out the vague situation SHIELD finds themselves in.

    "Let me guess, you're going to drop another nuke on some random bit of jungle somewhere. Or may be you're going to rob the Louvre. No, that's too simple. You've built a giant robot and intend to fight a giant HYDRA robot in the streets of San Francisco."

    Hyperbole has always been this man's M.O., "Why on God's green earth would I give you a favour. You're internationally wanted terrorists." And yet, he's still talking. That seed of trust was planted. It's almost like he needs to speak the words in his head just to get them out of the way.

Phil Coulson has posed:
"And yet, here we are," Phil repeats.

"For the record, we have an Iron Man already. And the nuke thing was unavoidable. We already sent a sizeable donation to the different zoos that support those poor animals, and to the Amazon Rainforest conservation society. We're not monsters." He leans forward slightly, his fingers entwining before him on the desk. "I could say that because of us, there still //is// a God's green Earth."

Phil will let that sink in for a couple of heartbeats before, "My people are working around the clock, and we're seeing a light that isn't an oncoming train. Not anymore. All I'm asking is that you trust us. Trust me." So much of Phil's contacts are personal as well as professional. It's his reputation on the line; to many, he is the face of SHIELD-that-was.

"There are going to be things cropping up.. I can't tell you what because I don't know. Messages on secured lines. We'll be in airspace, and we're not going to be following FAA rules. I need your help to quash some of those calls. Not all of them. I can't and won't ask you to do that. But, I think you'll recognize it when you see it."

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Something in the way his face unclenches suggests he knew exactly what had gone down in the amazon rainforest. He's not completely in the blind. Still, there was one charge against SHIELD that was irrefutably true. The drone attacks. They caused a lot of damage and people got hurt. The giant battle of the drones against the Triskelion was all over the news.

    "This better not be like that drone thing again," he says apparently conceding that may be, just may be, he's giving SHIELD enough rope. "But if I don't like what I see you're done. For good this time. No more half measures," he says and folds his arms in front of him. A defensive posture - he's not willing to stick his neck out for SHIELD just yet.

    "SHIELD is a loose cannon. If you expect me to sit idly by while you run around shooting lasers and flying oversized fidget spinners in to buildings you're sadly mistaken." Demands, he's about to lay out his demands, "Before I do anything to help you I need you to send me the proof you have that the SecDef is actually HYDRA. And second, you get your boss on the line to me. Nick Fury. If SHIELD is going to operate in the United States again it's going to be in partnership with my operation. I'll take this all the way to the President if I have to."

    His fingertips rub together as if he's fighting a decision he's making in his head. "I don't approve of all this spy crap Coulson. Make me a believer." Trust in Phil, it seems that might have been the key. He can't trust SHIELD but he can trust the face of a man who died for his country. Died uniting the Avengers to defeat Loki's alien invasion of New York.

Phil Coulson has posed:
Phil most definitely can see the closing of the man; he's closing himself off, but after listening to the words, maybe not. It's a posturing, an 'I don't like this', but his words are still inviting discourse. Score one for SHIELD?

"Fair enough," Phil concedes. "We were on the ropes for a bit, not gonna lie. Heck, no one would take my credit card to gas up the Bus." There's a crack in his poker face, a ghost of a smile. It's self-deprecating enough to allow the man to keep some 'face' as it were, and to ratchet the tension down a peg. Just in case. "We've had our issues, who doesn't. But, what I can tell you is that you'll get that proof as a present with a bow."

Phil's manner slips, however, at the request for a line to Fury. He doesn't know where the man is. He hasn't spoken to him in some time, come to think of it...

"I'll do my best. I'll be honest. I haven't seen the Director since I was re-stationed." Good term for it. Nice and neutral and doesn't give anything away. "I'll see what I can do, though. I have connections."

Of course he does.

Phil allows himself to breathe as he watches Talbot's body language, and he backs off just a little more. Not too much, mind. The Level 8 is a force to be reckoned with, and this is the life of his group in the balance. He nods, "I know, Colonel. I wish there wasn't a need for it, I do. But the reality is, there is a need, and we can use all the allies we can get, at any level." He finally offers a tight smile, and he nods his head once, definitively.

"That's my intention."

In the next heartbeat, Phil adds, "Thank you, sir," before he hangs up, cuts the connection. Finally, he takes a deep breath and lets it out, let all that stress out, and allow the relief to actually show for a second.

"It's a go," he says to the aether. Saying it outloud, after all, makes it real.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Talbot stands before the now blank screen for a moment longer. His vision moving past it as he thinks in his mind about what this could mean if he's wrong about these people. Something Bobbi Morse said to him really got to him the day Hale turned on him. "We've cleaned our house, can you say the same for yours?"

    "Harris," he says. His lieutenant enters the tent and salutes, "Sir!"
    "Where are we at with the security sweep."
    Harris lifts up his tablet and checks the list, "Three more HYDRA moles have been found Sir. General Hale is still refusing to talk."

    Talbot frowns, "Dismissed." Harris salutes and leaves the tent.