Helena Wayne is (the_huntress) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-12-10 01:32:00 |
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Entry tags: | huntress, nick fury |
Who: Olivia and Morgan
What: A visit
Where: Olivia's Bank
When: Shortly after Morgan arrived, so backdated.
Warnings/Rating: Nope, none.
When you walked into the bank building reserved for financial assets and wealth management, there was a quiet drone. It was the traditional noise of telephones and people talking, but dulled down to an expensive lull, dimmed by thick carpet and soft lighting and the lipsticked smile of the concierge. There was a concierge, and she had a red smile for every single client - not customer - that walked into the building. It was the hum of all things that must keep working, but those elements especially tiresome were limited, not permitted to intrude on those that sat on the butter-soft leather couches, who flicked through the paperwork, who were brought here to feel as though their hands were being held.
Olivia no longer noticed it. When she arrived at work, the hum was barely perceptible - she was early. She was always early and she was in need of the very good, very strong coffee kept locked in her top desk drawer (along with a kit of other necessities when handling the very wealthy and sometimes also, the very silly) and she walked past the concierge desk with a tiny smile and the lift of her little finger to say hullo. Olivia-at-the-bank was not a woman who had spent the previous evening sat on the floor of her apartment with a glass of Scotch and a handful (which was all there were) of photos and the catalogue from the gallery of upcoming shows. She was smooth, polished - the hair was in a neat knot at the base of her skull and she wore one of those suits in a nothing-color no doubt called something like stone or sand. Her shoes flashed as she walked across the thick carpet - today they were a burgundy, the color of spilled merlot and she curled them under the desk and out of sight as she drank her coffee and flicked through the morning’s financial papers. The hum rose around her, like a dawn chorus and Olivia too early to work to notice it at all. The bank woke, and Olivia was already up to her ankles in the detritus of a work day.
Years ago, five to be exact, Morgan had learned that she was a much nicer person if she woke early in the morning and grabbed a cat nap in the afternoon. There was something delightful and luxurious about it, sometimes right after lunch with her belly full of delicious food. Sometimes delicious wine or in the case of Germany, beer. But cities everywhere had taught her that waking up with the place, with the people, was something to be cherished as well, which was how she found herself waking up early to go to the bank.
Papers to sign, accounts to check on, and while she knew she could simply call Olivia and have all of that arranged, the papers faxed to her so she could sign them, the fact that they were in the same city was an invitation to visit. Dressed casually in a pair of linen slacks and an airy green halter top, Morgan wore her hair loose, the long strands stopping at her lower back. It wasn't quite warm enough for her to go with her open-toed shoes as much as she would have liked to, but a pair of moderate sharp-nosed heels did suit her. Giving the red lipped woman a warm smile, she stopped only to ask for directions to Olivia's office before her heels went click-click-clicking across the floor. The offices were thankfully carpeted, muffling her footfalls as she approached the door. A quick look confirmed that the other woman was there, hard at work but not with a client nor on the phone and just as handsome as Morgan remembered her. She rapped lightly against the door with her knuckles.
She was a creature of routine. The bank, its soft creamy lighting and artfully placed windows was an artificial creation of the best of the day and of the evening (the building sat open until quite late, clients operating on not just one but perhaps five or six different timezones) but Olivia’s internal clock ticked on, exact down to the second. It was neither time for a client, nor for a scheduled interruption -- she looked up, above the cup of coffee long gone cold and the spread of manila folders and papers across the desk and her lips thinned just for the contrary interruption posed. The glass in the door was designed to show an inlooker whether Olivia was available or occupied, but tilted so that Olivia was not perpetually distracted by the secretary peering in. She swung herself out from behind the desk, all tall lines and collectedness and she smoothed down the wrinkles in her skirt before striding across to the door.
She had begun flicking through the mental list of which client it might be -- there was the aging musician who had absolutely no regard for appointments and had once been violently sick into her wastepaper bin, there was the Japanese emigre whose hands were cool and papery and who was terribly apologetic but didn’t have enough time to schedule appointments properly - and there was, evidently, Mr Webster who liked to discuss cats whilst holding forms at ransom. The last was unlikely to make it down to the bank, preferring the Blackberry or even to conduct his jibes via stationery, but the mental compilation of the list caused the corners of her eyes to wrinkle, and when she opened the door, it was with the neat, polite smile given to everyone and anyone, rather than an expression reserved for anyone in particular.
“Morgan,” Olivia said, and she blinked. She was not expected - she was not unwanted, some clients being especially better than others and Olivia’s smile reflected that just a touch, the corners tilting differently - but the desk was a spread of other people’s financial statements and Olivia stood for a long minute in the doorway, neither inviting her in nor blockading her out and then, “Come in,” with a quick flash of the red heels as she turned back to her desk to gather things off the polished surface.
Morgan did not notice the difference in the smile that Olivia gave her versus one of her clients that she might not wanted to have seen. How could she, without being on the receiving end of it? But she did notice the wider turn of Olivia's generous lips and found her own curving to match. "Olivia," she said warmly as she breezed into the office as she often did. For years their relationship had been conducted by phone calls and biyearly visits whenever Morgan happened to be in New York.
Vegas was a different creature entirely. New York had been all metal and glass, tinged by blue. It had not been her favorite place to visit, carrying not the past like some cities in Europe, nor the future like Tokyo and some cities of Asia. Instead it carried hope (for a few) and despair (for many) or that's how she had always seen it. Vegas was colored neon in the lights of the strip, the hopes of many clinging to the place like it clung to life within the desert, a barnacle within an oven, baking, baking, and never cracking. Of course, Morgan had arrived when it was 'cool' as everyone repeatedly called it. She liked to think of it as mild and positively balmy after Toronto.
As different as the two cities were, Olivia's office was not entirely different than it had been the last time, though Morgan thought that the colors might have been softer here. Sitting down in one of the chairs (not Olivia's) she leaned against the back, not looking at the papers that the other woman was arranging to maintain the confidentiality of her clients. Morgan knew better and she had better manners than to stare. "I hope I didn't come at a bad time."
“No,” Olivia’s lie was smooth, polished and practiced. It gleamed like the gold-plated pen that sat tidily to one side of the stack of papers on her desk. Whether clients came at the wrong time or not, whatever ask they made, it was never the wrong time, it was never too great, it was always, always doable. For Olivia, Vegas was a city much like any other, bare-bones of steel-pinned structure and stark-bright lights -- except Vegas had none of the cladding of particular bars and restaurants, no passing places that memories clung to, like tattered moth wings cleaving on to corners.
Vegas was a place all business and the carved out dark space that was the Door and Morgan swinging through into her office was enough for thin, sharp settling sensation just below her breastbone. Odd. She hadn’t missed New York right up until the minute part of it had walked in the door. A breath then, long enough to shuffle paper into a desk drawer. Across the polished surface of the desktop, Olivia looked at her client.
“What can I do for you?” The system would pull up enough of the account details - her fingers clattered busily over the keys. “Your accounts are in health; this branch has become primary node for your business until formal notice is given you are moving on. I can provide an overview of activity, if that would be helpful?” Morgan would not be here to lean over and be copiously ill in her wastepaper basket, no small blessing for Olivia to be grateful for.
Of all the places that Morgan had visited over the years, very few of them would she say that she missed. The people, the food, the culture, the art, all those things which could fill a city or a province, she could miss. But a place? No. New York had not been one of her favorite places, she liked her colors warm and her places hot. The Big Apple was cool and cooler in the winter.
"That would be excellent, thank you," she demurred as she set both hands in her lap, elbows on the arm of the chair. "I was told they needed to have me sign some paperwork as well, but," she waved her hand through the air aimlessly. While she'd gotten the message, she hadn't listened to the details of it. It had been enough to know that she needed to come in to sign something.
It was different with the few clients she managed. Not part of a bank, there was usually very little to sign for them, but she had her own way of ensuring that she was talking to them and receiving directions from them and not an impersonator. She still needed to keep their money safe. Moreover, it gave her a chance to visit the lovely woman on the other side of the fine teak desk. Morgan never could turn that down. Olivia was too much of a mystery, all that reserve broken up by a tiny crack that most would never ever notice -- it showed in her shoes. All the nude, bland tones in the world couldn't cover up that wild slash of color on her feet.
There was a small, sleek looking printer set onto the counter behind the desk - it was, in the way of the most expensive kinds of things, unobtrusive but it hummed into life and began churning paper out with a rhythmic, soft drone. Olivia picked them up; her nails were shaped, smooth but unpainted and she flicked through the sheets as though she barely needed to see what was on them at all. Morgan’s account - accounts, there were a handful - was well enough known. It was like a complex equation or a formulae that had a knot to it, not vastly complex but satisfying to tie off. Morgan herself had been a voice on the telephone that reminded Olivia of music, a laugh that was so frequent it was careless. Olivia did not laugh like that, not so often and not in business and she would sit and she would listen and she would wonder the how of it, absently as she ticked over forecasts and projections.
“As I said, all the accounts are in health, the primary is better than the most, obviously as we’ve had static investments,” it was a little like sinking into a warm bath, familiar and confident of that familiarity -- Olivia recited the latest of the details, handed over the papers and tapped another few keys to bring up the paperwork that required Morgan’s signature. Olivia paid little attention at all to her clients’ mode of dress, or even the lines and form of their bodies -- clients were clients, sexless and uninteresting purely because of business denoting the lines, and she crossed her ankles beneath the desk with those shoes tucked out of sight without a second thought to their notice.
“Really, we could just leave the investments to mature. Nothing further is required unless you want to extend the risk on the capital.” She looked up from the paperwork with a brief smile, and proffered the pen across the desk. It was heavy, expensive.
Morgan was used to expensive things like some people were accustomed to breathing. The silence of the printer beyond that quiet hum of sheets printing out was expected, indicative of the money well spent. Taking the papers from Olivia, she flipped over them, spending more time than the other woman had on the figures, analyzing them, understanding them in ways that most wouldn't before she nodded and dropped them down to the polished surface of the desk.
"No." With the money coming in from Tomas' and the money she earned from the few clients she had, Morgan didn't need to make the risk. Nor was she greedy enough to do so, she had plenty of money to maintain her current lifestyle even if she received no more money from her ex-husband. Reaching out, she took the fine pen from Olivia, their fingers only barely touching, the tips of her sliding along the edges of those well manicured nails before they closed. "If they weren't where they are, I might consider it, but I'm not going to jeopardize their health for something I don't need."
The smile was genuine, approving. Olivia liked clients who did not demand the sky from their investments -- sometimes it was hard enough to keep abreast of their outgoings (one Mr Webster came to mind, with the associated tiny frown) but for others, it was merely managing risk and payoff. “I assume now we’re up to speed, it will be another six months?” For a pleasant client, Morgan was rare -- a brief meeting spent in brisk overview of financial information the woman was more than capable of digesting at her leisure, paperwork and then a six month absence. It was, Olivia considered, a little like seasons. With Morgan, one knew what to expect.
That had been the norm for her when Olivia was in New York. Morgan couldn't stand the city with any more regularity than that, no matter how good the shopping was. Here, though? Morgan smiled pleasantly at the woman across from her, pale pink lips spreading as if they were sharing a secret. Olivia had always been one of those women that had everything in order, everything in its place, functioning just as it should. Never a hair out of place, never a stray strand of thread on her impeccably bland clothing, but Morgan returned to the shoes, those few bright drops of color that adorned Olivia's feet.
Maybe it was time to be a bit like Olivia's shoes. Unexpected. "If I find a home I like here, we may see more of each other," she said as she flipped the pen up between her fingertips and held it out to her. "We never saw much of one another when you were in New York." Morgan would breeze in on a whim and the same wind that brought her in would take her out just as fast. It was time to indulge.
The pen slipped a millimeter. It was neither overt nor showy, a dramatic reaction drawing attention to itself. It could be excused; the metal was polished and thus slippery, her nails were overly long and made her grip difficult, they had each misjudged the distance necessary for the pen to pass effortlessly between one hand and the other. Nevertheless, it slipped - a little - and Olivia’s breath caught as she caught the pen and she held it delicately between fingertips as she looked at Morgan, expression beautifully opaque.
“You are intending to move?” The thought had not occurred - certainly, enough passing mention had been made of why New York was not Morgan’s desired home and the transfer of accounts signaled a move of some significance. But Morgan was ever traveling, ever-moving. The thought of a fixed point for so transient a client was startling.
“Perhaps.” Olivia smiled and it was a quiet thing, perfectly suitable to an office and polite.
It could have been a slip, but Morgan didn't believe that for a moment. There was very little to suggest that Olivia ever slipped, that anything within these four walls that were her home ever slid past her. Helena, in the back of her mind, perked up at the mystery. Why slip now?
While she tried to puzzle it out, Morgan simply smiled at her. "I'm intending to buy a house," she said gently, wondering if the simple news of her staying in one place was enough to throw Olivia off when they'd spoken the other evening about her setting down roots here. It had been years since she had a true home, at least since she sold her home with Sugar, but in between there had been hotel rooms, short term rentals, cruise ships, all manner of temporary residences that she had loved and left behind. Now she had the urge to put down roots, to make a home for herself and with the girl in her mind -- Morgan wasn't cruel enough to take her away from the world she had come to know as her own.
The perfectly polite smile, not a single curve wavering on those lips, was met with a warm one of Morgan's own.
“An investment,” Olivia said, and her voice was as even as silk, as if there had never been indication of disturbance at all. “Why Vegas?” It sounded polite, it sounded like the kind of small-talk made over drinks with perfect strangers, the kind of thing you asked without asking anything at all. But Morgan was travel, the kind of pick-up-and-go that Olivia thought about when the wind-chill in New York blew through her, when she came home to her apartment and did the same thing each evening. Why Vegas, why the desert and the dry heat and the wicked-bitter cold night?
Why wasn't quite as easy as it should be. She'd been drawn here and now with Helena... Morgan felt partially responsible for her. But there was more than that. She'd enjoyed comic books for years. Having Helena with her was a joy, even if her initial appearance had Morgan seeking reassurance that she wasn't mentally ill. Once she had it from Dr Fischer, she could enjoy her time with the young woman. As she understood it, it was a mutual feeling. A small smile crossed her lips, the corners lifting upwards. "I haven't had a home in years and I like Vegas. It's not New York, or Los Angeles, or any of the southern cities with all their gentle pride, or the ones of the north western with their music and coffee. I've seen the cities of the old world, but they are steeped in history. I want the future."
Home was a foreign concept to Olivia. It was a place whole and warm-heartedly embraced by many, celebrated in adverts come Christmas and guarded by well-intentioned rhetoric in pulpits and at political lecturns. Home, to Olivia, was the quiet one-sided phone calls she could overhear her grandmother making, lengthy pauses no doubt, to handle intermittent weeping at Christmas or vacation times. Home, with all its implication of rest and steadiness, of routine, was the relief that ran through her as she stepped inside school, and then college. She listened to Morgan’s explanation with the vague sense of not understanding a great deal of it, but wishing to, and she capped her pen with a neat click.
“Vegas has its charms for many,” she agreed, and for those who knew Olivia, it had that faint echo of for other people, polite opinion given where her own would not do. In truth, the dusty warmth of the month was disconcerting for a woman who embraced the cold, felt it skate up her spine with a shiver of tenacity and drank her coffee weaving in and out of other people on the sidewalks of New York.
It had taken her many years, many miles, and many cities to learn that home was nothing that could be captured on a card or turn of phrase. It wasn't the idyllic fire burning in the hearth on a cold winter's day or the picturesque family gathered around for Christmas dinner. She had seen far too many families, far too many homes both whole and splintered to think of that as home.
For her, it simply was a place of gathering. Of semi-permanent roots where loved ones gathered and found respite, however temporary or lengthy the stay might be. There were few she could consider in their number, but there was the dawning realization that if she found them, if she was going to have a family of her own, not of her blood or flesh, it would be here. "It does," Morgan agreed with a small smile, realizing that there was much more Olivia wasn't saying. "But it's always the people that make a place."
“I’m sure.” She wasn’t; New York was New York whether Ana had been in it or not, and Vegas was stubbornly Vegas, despite the people that crawled around on its back. But Olivia smiled as if everything unfolded itself into sense, and as if disconcertingly pretty clients had philosophical discussions all the time. She slid the paperwork Morgan had signed into a plain manila folder, and closed the desk drawer on the changes made to Morgan’s account details.
Olivia stood, and it was a gliding movement but one that came with a commanding confidence. “My next appointment is due. Let me know if I need to liquidate any funds for house purchase.”
"Oh! Of course," Morgan said, demurring as she stood up, hands leaving the edges of her chair to settle loose and comfortable at her sides. The corner of her mouth tilted up in an amused smile -- the other woman wasn't prone to flights of philosophy. Not in her office, where structure and decorum ruled, Pythagorean order to her Socratic method. Morgan wondered what she would be like outside of this place, and not for the first time. The shoes suggested that there was more than order and flawless mild manners to her.
"Have a good day, Olivia," she said warmly, the other corner of her mouth finally tilting up into an honest smile as she stepped out of the office, breezing out as easily as she had come in.