aggravating | 8th Command; Voice

There's this old adage, Bargians. Secrets, secrets are no fun. Unless you are a part of one. I'd kind of like to add onto that for a minute. So, uh, bear with me.

There are a few things that yeah, they're supposed to be kept secret. No one and their aunt Martha care about your latest bowel movement or who you had a crush on in the third grade. Seriously, they don't. Unless you're loud, obnoxious, spray tan like hell every chance you have, and get into cat fights over who gets the last can of soda. Those are fine. As are the family secrets, things like divorces, fights. I'm not saying "Spill your guts, Bargites, 'cause it's just not faaaaaaair~!" Those aren't the types of secrets I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the secrets that have to do with someone else. If someone knows something about your future that, you know, might be good to know for your own peace of mind, your own well-being, then hey. What the hell are you keeping it from them for? Because I pretty much guarantee that when they find out - and they will - things will be even worse than you imagined.

And yeah, for the record? Lies of omission totally count.

[Private to Natasha]
Coulson's dead, huh? Or did Rogers leave that out of his debrief?

[Private to Arkady]
Gorgeous, I needed to be drunk yesterday.

[Private to Charles]
Give me a reason to actually keep giving a shit, Prof. Because apparently even if I work to come back to life now, I just die again later.

[Private to Steve]
So. Rogers.

Coulson's dead.

I flew a nuke into space.

Loki's a fucking supervillain.

Game over.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Charles isn't so easily deterred, although there is a moment where he almost wonders which he prefers, someone who leaves when they don't feel like talking (like Erik), or someone who just deflects and tries to distract people from the real issue (like Tony).

They're both frustrating in their own way, although for now, he's grateful he doesn't have to go chasing after him or convince him to come back. There isn't the same kind of implicit trust between them that there was - had been - between him and Erik, so he knew it would have been harder to get him back and talking about it.]

I'm not just telling you what you want to hear, Tony. I'm a telepath, I've seen plenty of deeply flawed people, but I've only ever met one truly horrible person, and you don't even compare. [He'd been inside Shaw's mind, he'd seen what he thought, and he'd held him down while Erik shoved a coin through his skull because he knew that Shaw would kill him if Erik didn't back down, and he knew Erik wouldn't, and he'd been with him when he died because the pain was so intense he couldn't pull back.] You aren't horrible. Not even close.

[Tony's level of skill in topic switching borders on a doctorate, really. He's been studying the art since he was a kid, with some of the best masters in the subject.

Which is why, even as Charles switches back to the original topic, he is definitely not giving up that easily. He just wants the drinks being offered. Wants to lose himself and his sobriety, to tip over the edge and forget. Not sit here and hash things out. Which is why he's just topping off his glass again, taking a big gulp and reveling in the burn as it slides down his throat.]

Not me, but seriously. Teaching positions last what, a few years at most, unless you keep signing away your life to a typewriter and pushing out publishable papers every few months? You ever need spare change, seriously invest in a crystal ball and a turban. Can you do an Indian accent? I mean, you already have British going for you, but if you can pull off exotic...

Edited 2012-08-09 12:30 (UTC)

[Charles just shakes his head, laughing quietly, a bit exasperated.]

Something tells me I'll be alright, without turning to cheap theatrics. [What with the family fortune, and everything. Granted, building a school for mutant children and teenagers to grow up and study at wasn't going to be cheap, but he'd worry about that particular hurdle when he got there. And he could always churn out some best selling books if things got really desperate.

He was still smiling a bit, phrasing the question conversationally, like they were just chatting and nothing at all unusual had happened.]

Are you feeling any better, or are you just trying to be evasive?

[He's grinning, something in-between an actual smile and what he normally pushes on for the press. Wide and cheap and so obviously fake it almost hurt seeing it reflected back at him in newspapers, news broadcasts. It's a weird tongue in cheek sort of expression. Like he has a secret he's going to take to his grave, but he's way too amused with dangling it right in front of Charles' nose, just an inch out of reach.]

Not getting in that easy, Charles. It'd take the fun out of it.

I suppose it would. [He still sounds a little exasperated, but there's some humor there. It's, again, a challenge he's willing to embark on.

And while he is getting something he wants out of this, if Tony graduates, his motives aren't entirely selfish. While he certainly understood and agreed that Tony needed help, he wasn't someone who deserved to be locked away here forever.]

Who's Nat?

[He's just grinning, taking another sip of his scotch, waiting as Charles thinks, trying to see if he can feel something in his head shifting, but... yeah. Nothing. It's weird.

But in the end, he's snorting, closing his eyes for a second and thinking back. Natalie Rushman walking in with Pepper, the lingerie catalog, her taking down Happy, seeing her dressed in leather and answering to Fury, stabbing him in the neck with a needle. Natalie. Natasha. Rushman. Romanoff. The Black Widow.

Oh, wait. Oops. Nicole Reese. Oops?

... Yeah, no. He's not even sorry right now.]

You know, I'm still not sure on that one.

[Considering this all had been a fairly horrible thing to have dumped in your lap without warning, Charles really couldn't blame him for quasi accidentally blowing her cover. She had, after all, allowed him to befriend someone who murdered a friend and tried to take over Earth (which still sounded a little absurd to him, and while admittedly, he didn't have much ground to stand on when it came to what was normalcy, stopping nuclear war seemed a bit less like something you'd see in a movie.)]

I'm not sure if that answers more questions than it raises. She's an inmate, then?

[There's a point where Tony gets enough alcohol in his system that he can block out traumatic events of the last few weeks perfectly. And he is at that point. Who cares if Steve and Natasha used him? Who cares if he was befriending a psychopathic murderer? Who cares if most of the people he even remotely trusted on the barge turned out to be absolute jackasses?

Not him. He has Pepper and brandy and a Warden actually awesome and dickish enough to get him drunk in an attempt to get him to talk. As much as that should piss him off, it really just impresses him.

He's messed up.]

She's calling herself a Warden, but screw that. Rogers told me who the rest of the Avengers were, and I refuse to be the only one on our Island of Misfit toys messed up enough to be labeled an Inmate.

8th Command; Voice

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