9098/Upon A Tuesday Clear

Upon A Tuesday Clear
Date of Scene:	15 December 2021
Location:	Main Foyer: Triskelion
Synopsis:	No description
Cast of Characters:	Michael Erickson, Jane Foster, Jessica Drew

---

Michael Erickson has posed:
    It's the middle of December, and it was 70 degrees today. Tonight it's colder, but not so much that Michael needs to bundle up as if he were about to promenade through the Yukon in the dead of winter. He wears a pea coat and a turtleneck with jeans, drinking from an enormous mug as he stares off into space. Weird, really. When he's not acting human, it's incredibly obvious that he isn't. Not when you know the truth, and especially if you've spent time with nonhuman things. Or a lot of animals. The hawk is still in him, somewhere. Roosting in his primal brain-parts.

Jane Foster has posed:
A 70 degree day in December, surely that means the apocalypse is nigh. Thor rides ahead of the cycle of Ragnarok, gathering up the Asgardians to wage a final last battle. Drink deep and be glad... or perhaps that's the story a group of Kryptonians, Themyscirans, and assorted others tell themselves while battling on a group RPG with the newest PlayStation struggling to keep up. Flash speedsters are unfortunately hell on wheels when it comes to video games.

Jane wears a long dress suited more for shattered stained glass than SHIELD. A long black coat over the whole ensemble is open while she stares at a phone clasped in her hands, flicking through the images and webpages with a fluency suggesting she doesn't actually read. Or she reads at a rate suggestive of skimming, maybe worse in the balance. How she navigates through the Triskelion on auto-pilot is another matter, but a miserable sensor bleats loudly and someone in security has to answer that.

Michael takes her a moment, two or three to notice. Yukon adventures aside -- Tatshenshini all the way -- he's hard to miss.

Michael Erickson has posed:
    He is, which in his profession, would be normally seen as a real issue - he's a blandly handsome man, someone who's mean to fade away in the crowd. But...put him in the middle of an open space, and he stands out despite himself. So he stares into space, sipping his coffee. Alone in the crowd. The building. The world. Remembers, in the moment, that he is having a hard time envisioning the stars as they appear from Chandilar. A snort causes steam to curl about his nostrils, giving him the briefest appearance of a dragon. Perhaps in human form, along with the hawk. Is there a beast, as well, within him?

    The sound of a sensor bleating brings his attention away from space; he looks across the way, almost getting up despite himself. Feeling the weight of the gun under his jacket, the intelligence inside its ancient frame perking for battle. But it's only Jane, a very different form of emergency. The sort that, at least in the moment, isn't urgent or life-threatening. "Doctor," he hails. "Good evening."

Jane Foster has posed:
Believe what he will about fading into a crowd. Some things do not for Jane, though she doesn't admit to knowing what stands out like a bright beacon in the dead of a misty night. Sometimes the unpredictable factors fail to have explanatory sources, and she hovers on the brink for a moment. The phone slips away into her pocket, the coat clinging to her shoulders and left open around the halter-neck dress arrayed like feathers around her in a gradient from deepest indigo to a deliriously rich bronze. Pieces intersect and flow as she halts, fingers to her coat seam rather than let it fall. "Delightful."

Agent Someone-or-Other, probably Fanneke or Pauli, will have to get up and sweep a bar over her just in case. Annoying, yes, but something to be expected. She smiles, waiting patiently for him to conduct his work while Michael balances between alertness and being far, far away. Oh yes, she's an utterly life-threatening risk only to fashion. "Good evening, agent," she relies on a bit of wry humour to get through. Beep. Yes, that's a broken scanner. Beep, yes, that's a broken scanning wand. Beep, "Proof Stark has it in for me." A deadpan smile doesn't help entirely.

Michael Erickson has posed:
    Now there's a moment where Michael feels a certain military irritation at the agents swarming a figure of command - but it flares and fades in a moment, even as he rises to stand whilst the wands go sweeping over them. "I'm not an agent," he points out to her, taking a sip from his mug. "I only mention that since it's been a figure of misunderstanding quite a bit of late. How are you?"

Jane Foster has posed:
Check, check, check. Eventually the badge at her hip and probably some frustrated waving confirm that yes, Jane is Jane Foster. She will endure the waving and flapping of the security agent in order to get to her place of work. Or from it. Dressed like that, bit weird to be at a desk job. Then again, does she /have/ one?

"Do they know that?" Jane deadpans. "Also, it's part of the movie lines. Though I've spent more nights watching those classics than I ever thought I would outside university." The mirthful reminiscence on that point brightens her expression, an erstwhile grin briefly forming and fading. "You work with us, not part of us. I know. People bossing you about or having issues over turf? I rarely get into it, but then my responsibilities are odd. I'm well enough. Plans fell through. Decided to get research in. You?"

Michael Erickson has posed:
    Oh, that gets her a smirk. "Ah, yes," replies Michael, who now approaches her with mug in hand. "But I'm Shi'ar. We don't have art, we don't have music, and we don't dream. So. Most art is for 'lesser' species." He makes the finger-quotes as he says it with his free hand, smirking faintly. "Of course that's why we get so obsessed with science and military adventurism, I suppose. And the general lack of empathy toward others."

    Now Michael draws near, looking Jane over as he does so. "You look amazing," he remarks, pointing out the obvious. "Social function? I hope it wasn't a date."

Jane Foster has posed:
"What it sounds like is that you need a culture-cation to truly and properly discover what Earth has to offer." Jane breaks into a laugh. "You keep telling me art's for lesser species, yet the greater ones I find appreciate architecture and symmetry. They lean /into/ it. Tell me again if you do not have some academy devoted to streamlining and making things more elegant. Science is at its heart a kind of art. Nothing like staring into the chaos of the early universe or the endless night sky, knowing there are whole quadrants of space we will never reach, to perceive the pattern of something great."

Waxing eloquent is easy when one is a physicist. That's rather their stoke in trade. "The lack of empathy seems bound to hurt your people one of these days. I hope not. You said your Majestrix recently came to power? Perhaps in this she will discover cultural exchanges strengthening your people and not the other way around. Our lessons are few on the cosmic stage, but that would be a good one."

Her smile lifts slightly. "Scientific function. Believe me, my partner doesn't stand me up for dates."

Michael Erickson has posed:
    A faint smirk lines Michael's lips. "Trust me, Doctor," says the man, a faint sparkle of amusement in those hard blue eyes. "The Majestrix is very much a creature of cultural exchange - but of course, it requires a certain political sensibility. Can't give up the shop just for a single culture. All the same, I feel that she will be good for the Empire in general." A shrug. "But it's still not anything I'm going back to. Anyway. Truth be told, I was always very high on the empathy index. I've always been considered a bit...soft by superiors in the past, at first." At first. That's vaguely ominous.

    "But in the end...yes, well. When I say art, I mean painting, drawing, that sort of thing. We have our own equivalents - like you say, architecture. See the skyline of the capital, with its miles of crystal-grown towers, that's artistic." He shrugs. "Honestly I think my people just like to think they're different. It's all ego."

Jane Foster has posed:
"Sensibility doesn't mean impartiality when dealing with various traits known. We are hardly the only species willing to use art as a means of expression and wonder, nor to broaden horizons or engage in cultural conquests. You would be shocked to know what has been conveyed in paint or a sculpture, much less a coin, and changed the world without a blade being drawn. Rather more enduring. Blades get dull. Pistols stop firing. The ideas..." Jane breaks into a slender smirk, all said and done, and doesn't push further than that. Her dress of cracked glass plumes sways around her while she moves away from the guard station, a little closer, on the presumption conversation won't be a problem. Escapee from a nice bar, perhaps, or a night of theatre.

"Crystal grown towers are pretty. Reminds me of a Japanese television show from when I was very little, a woman in that could build whole skylines of them." She dips her head slightly and then circles her finger and thumb. "How has your night been? Surely you aren't loafing it around here with all the city offers."

Jessica Drew has posed:
The glass doors mirror back the light as they roll back to admit a dark haired woman into the atrium from the inner offices. Jess's boots click smartly on the non-slip marble floors as she makes a line straight for her asset. A badge swings around her neck atop a deep green blouse that deepens the color of her eyes, she holds it up as she passes the second checkpoint, hands out to show she is not carrying anything with her.

There are two of them in the no-man's land between the first and second checkpoint. She smiles warmly at Jane and cocks her head in a questioning tilt at Michael. "I hope you haven't been waiting too long. Hi, Jane. Don't /you/ look nice. Don't tell me this is office wear. They've increased the budget if it is standard issue."

Michael Erickson has posed:
    "No, no." He's about to ask about this television thing when the doors to the inner offices open and Jessica rolls out, and his smile warms ever so slightly as his eyes travel that way. "I was just waiting on Agent Drew, actually." He bows his head slightly in Jessica's direction as she approaches, then gestures to Jane. "Does she not? I was about to suggest that perhaps she summon this mysterious partner of hers to carry her off for dinner."

Jane Foster has posed:
Jess approaches and receives a bright smile as a result. She receives a wave as she closes in on them, the Shi'ar and the bog-standard Pacific Northwesterner maintaining that conversation in easy enough tones. "I hate to disappoint you, but I maintain my own career partly to manage nice things, like clothes and an adequate place to live in this city. Speaking of, you ought to come by during the holidays to see how little art we have." Her laugh bubbles up again, disuse a matter only subtly there. Spending much of her day in silent conversation has an impact.

"I may just have to inquire if he's quite done bingeing... I think it's Jamie Oliver this week. Important business." Jane's smile doesn't shift at all.

Jessica Drew has posed:
Jessica turns a tentative smile on Jane, all too aware of the barriers that many people at SHIELD place between their public and private lives. More is at risk for the scientist by Jessica's reckoning though she is not one to talk about herself in the canteen line either. Force of habit and a deep reticence about letting other people know what or who could make her vulnerable. Much as the Red Room girls like to throw their weight around about how bad their training was, Jess wouldn't deign to get into one upping them on who was tortured more.

"Will you tell us or will it remain a secret?"

Michael Erickson has posed:
    "Yes," Michael replies, turning his attention on Jane as well. "Shall we remain ignorant?"

Jane Foster has posed:
A trailing smile has a way of lingering. Not like most of the world knows Jane works with SHIELD. "What, I thought you knew." A genuine statement, that, rolling off the tongue too swift and amused to really be anything else, unless she is a consummate liar in a house of slant-tongued devils and silver-tongued angels. "Mr. Boltagon, someone you might have met. He works with us in an advisory capacity," she explains for Michael, in case it doesn't ring a bell. It might not. Reality is probably grateful for the lack of carolling where the Midnight King is involved. The brunette tucks a small lock of her hair behind her ear, the loose strands freed from the smooth styling she adopted for the night. "The two of you are headed somewhere, and I'm keeping you. Shall I let you carry on?"

Jessica Drew has posed:
Shaking her head, Jessica might as well have lived away from any news or gossip for the last few years for all she knows of Jane's situation. "I didn't know. You would think that I would." She shares a look with Michael.

"He's Inhuman like me." Difficult words for her to say aloud, not only for it being less then a year since the accident happened. She has adjusted to some of the changes, others have taken her time to adapt. "I've never met him, Jane, just heard of him. He has quite a reputation," she adds cryptically. "And no, we are keeping you, Jane." She doesn't question the ease or warmth she feels around Jane, just accepts it gladly.

Michael Erickson has posed:
    "I've got no reason to know," says Michael, though he steps in to stand next to Jessica. "Perhaps some day I shall meet him. His name is not known to me." With that he leans in to say in, a mock-conspiratorial manner, "I've been trying very hard not to actually spy on SHIELD at all, you know."

    He looks between the two women. "Well, I'm happy to have company at all. So don't mind me."

Jane Foster has posed:
"Tabloids are what they are," Jane answers with a laugh. "I've had my fair share of them trying to question Thor and that human woman he hung out with. Trust me, I'm happier using the spotlight for education and helping good causes, not feeding the gossip mill. Avoid it if you can."

The Inhuman gossip mill is so much quieter. Really. "Again, we shall have to do a dinner or such." The options make her laugh. "I'm so claimed, then. Consider it done."

Jessica Drew has posed:
"No you don't. But you will. Jane has invited us to her house twice now." Turning to Jane, she says, humor lighting her eyes, "I've never thought you were someone who air kissed and said, "We must see each other sometime, my dear." and not meant the invitation. Please let us know when it suits you."

Michael Erickson has posed:
    "Very well, then." Another short nod, the almost-bow, to Jane. "Doctor. Have a good evening." Then as Jane departs, he offers Jessica his arm. "This way, Agent..."