Max ≠ Kara Zor-L (parademons) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-12-17 16:47:00 |
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Entry tags: | iron man, power girl |
Who: Max and Silver
What: Arguments, guns and first aid kits
Where: A shooting range
When: Recently
Warnings/Rating: Does crankiness require a warning?
Max still hadn't calmed down from her run-in with Cerise. Hers hands were still shaking with anger. Anger at the woman. Anger at the arsonist. Anger at herself for not just killing her. Anger at Corvus for making her avoid that killshot. She'd killed someone the day before without blinking, a terrorist that she'd been tracking for the past month, one of the key figures in the import of explosives to Las Vegas. She hadn't care about him, and she hadn't given a shit about pulling that trigger. But tonight she'd wanted to finish someone, and she hadn't been able to. She felt pissed off, and she felt impotent, and she wondered how the fuck she had ended up back in this kind of mess. She'd avoided anything like this since Seattle, and here she was again, back in the saddle when she had no interest in going for this ride.
She drove out to the meeting spot in her truck, a big white thing, country blaring so loudly that it seeped through the windows and out into the Vegas night. She never smoked anymore, but she bought a pack when she stopped for gas, and she lit one as she neared the coordinates McKellar had given her. Jesus, shit, she just didn't have it in her to watch the entire world get turned on its end again.
The truck pulled up, dirt and gravel kicking out beneath the back wheels as she cut the engine in the lot of the shooting range. She liked this range because it was far enough away from the city that the neon lights didn't reach the place, and there was nothing that looked inhabited for miles around. There was just the squat building that served as the range, concrete and soundproof, and with an outdoor range just beyond it. She'd spent plenty of time shooting police-regulation targets inside, but she went around the outside this time. She'd called ahead, and the place was deserted. Not even the attendant was around, and she pulled a handheld device out of the pocket of her jeans, shorting out any electronic devices in the immediate vicinity.
Gun tucked into a holster beneath her black jacket, she looked every bit the spy as she approached the outdoor range in heeled boots and jeans. Her hair, scraped back in a ponytail, swung between her shoulderblades as she moved, and her shoulders were tense-straight. She was aware of the environment, and she listened for even the smallest sound of a twig or pebble. Whatever McKellar was in now, it was big, and she'd managed to end up right, smack in the fucking middle of it.
Most notably, she wasn't carrying any food; McKellar was a big boy. He could get his own Happy Meal, as long as he wasn't bleeding out. She might make an exception then.
In better days, the range hosted RVs on its long, level parking lot. It was a wide space that faced the pistol and rifle range, and there was not a speck of green in sight far as far as you could see in any direction. All the emptiness absorbed a great deal of sound, and Silver’s friends, like Max’s, found it useful to own such a patch of desert, and even make a little bit of legitimate money on the side. There wasn’t a vehicle in the lot, nor was there an immediately obvious place to hide one, but Silver was sitting in a metal folding chair at a table in the middle of the range, slumped down with his chin on his chest.
When she got close enough to reach gravel, something made him sit up, and all he had to do was look down the lane to see her. There was simply no other approach, which was probably why he was sitting there. Ear and eye protection was sitting on the little table, and there were four guns and several boxes of ammo sitting there, as if expectant that he would be firing at nothing. He hadn’t been doing any shooting, and by appearance it didn’t seem as if he planned on it, despite the supplies near at hand. He didn’t move as she got nearer, just waited for her to come, empty-handed.
Silver had probably looked better. He’d taken no time to shower or do more than wipe some of the blood off the side of his face. A contusion on the side of his head at his hairline had spread rusty red down his jaw and into the curve of his ear. One side of his face was bruised in fire ant blue and red, and the corner of his mouth was marked the same way. He wore laced boots stained with gray and red earth, jeans that were stained ugly, and a shirt that may once have been white--before someone died a couple inches from it. One arm was laced deceptively over his stomach, while he had the other elbow propped back on the back of the folding chair. He was breathing shallow. “Black?” he said. “In the desert?”
Max looked at the table first, a quick visual perusal of the weapons there, before she shucked off the jacket to reveal a grey tanktop beneath it. "It's 48 degrees, even out here in the desert," she reminded him, pulling her Sig 1911 from the now-visible holster, and then setting it on the table with a magazine. It was an old gun, but lovingly polished, and she twisted her long ponytail around itself before she slipped the protective goggles on. She gave him a look then, a long, hard look. He looked like shit, but she didn't need to tell him that. She just shoved the earplugs at him before tucking her own in. She didn't bother asking after targets. Her aim was perfect, and it had been since her father had put her through a thousand exercises to earn his approval when she was just a kid. This wasn't about practice. This was about being pissed off, and she snapped the magazine in the semiautomatic and emptied the entire thing into the dune at the end of the range. The kick to her shoulder barely registered movement, and her aim left a perfect circle in the dune.
The gun was still smoking when she emptied the magazine and let it clatter on the table. She let the string holding the earplugs hang around her shoulders, and she shoved the goggles atop her head. "Do you want to tell me how they managed to get you? Because you're the most paranoid motherfucker I know," she said, before relenting with a groan and yanking the goggles off. "I have a kit in the truck," she informed him. "You're guarding your abdomen and your resps are reduced to six per min. Give me a rundown, so I know if I go get it, or if we need to get you to a hospital that doesn't ask questions." It wasn't a request for information, but rather a demand.
Silver bore the look for a few seconds and then he seemed to be amused by it, and his bloodied mouth curved slightly as she glared at him. He glanced over to her gun and then at the range. He was annoyed at her for making him move, but he did end up with eyes and ears somewhat protected (to great irony, no doubt) while she shot at nothing at all. He was still looking at the little puff of dust out in the distance when she pulled the ears and eyes off. He did the same without moving excessively much. “Waste of ammunition,” he observed, quietly.
He grinned at her. “Just found the right guy. And he was very good.” Past tense. Silver was too much of a professional to be anything but pleased he was the one still alive. “Just got banged up some,” he admitted. “It’s not urgent. Had to deal with him. Need to deal with who sent him, too. Quick, if I can. I can’t do that over the phone, but a few visits, maybe.” Silver scratched his chin, and when he came away with dried blood he gave it a faintly surprised look. Dusting off his hand, he said, “Maybe the more hellish I look, the better.” The grin got dangerous.
"You deal with your adrenaline your way, and I'll deal with it mine," she said, leaning against the table and looking at him. She almost groaned when he grinned, because only Silver could find humor in something like this. "The kid and I are always saying you remind us of his dad, but see, that right there? Completely negates that. Brandon would never smile after offing someone." She rolled her eyes, and she reached out a hand to see if the gun had cooled yet. Tonight, she felt naked without it, and not in a good way. "You need to get cleaned up before you deal with anyone else, and don't give me that dangerous bullshit grin, agent," she bit back, already turning on her heel.
She was only gone a few seconds, and she returned with a beer from the six pack she'd picked up when she bought the smokes, along with the medkit she always carried in the truck. The beer she slid across to him, along with the new, bright blue lighter. The medkit she opened wordlessly. Men. They drove her fucking insane sometimes. "You killed someone. An agent or a hitman?" she asked, continuing without giving him a chance to answer. "Whoever sent them will get someone better next time, or they'll go for weaker targets. Justine? Wren?" she asked, because he'd blackmailed so many people that it was impossible to know who would come after him, or what they would do. She squirted some antiseptic cleanser on some gauze, and she kicked his thighs wider apart to stand between them. She touched the gauze to his temple with more pressure than was necessary, but he deserved it for being an idiot, as far as she was concerned. She was still wound tight from the explosion, from Cerise, and being gentle just wasn't on the agenda. "A few visits?" she finally asked. "You kill more people, and this hole is just going to get deeper, Silver." She never used his first name.
Silver suspected that Brandon was capable of a great many things, and he had no intention of making the man in New York his enemy. He’d been careful about that, because he liked living, thanks very much. That he wouldn’t smile was reassuring for about two seconds until you remembered all the people in this world that didn’t smile because they couldn’t be bothered. Silver’s expression, under all the blood and dirt, was mildly interested as he considered it.
He stayed in precisely the same place as she came and went, and while he would really have preferred to see exactly what she was doing, he was too tired. “The difference between agents and hitmen can be very slim,” he observed, sounding like a college professor after a night at the bar. He looked at the medkit with glum attention, and then raised an eyebrow at her. “Nobody’s going after Justine or Wren or any of my other clients or neighbors. No strategic advantage.” The first sign of real danger was only when she kicked at him to get closer. He was on edge and it was that, and not the blast of a gun or the sting of antiseptic pain, that felt like a threat. He gave her a sharp warning look.
His tone was of slight surprise. “Who said anything about killing people? Information and intimidation. Blackmail doesn’t work when people are dead.” He paused for a dramatic moment. “But I would prefer if you didn’t use my name in company if you’re coming.” Another grin. Definitely not Brandon. “Ow,” he added, when she attacked him with the antiseptic.
"I was asking if it was on the books," she asked, the question posed slowly, as if he might have trouble understanding it. It was intentionally annoying, because she was annoyed herself, and he might as well share the fun. "No strategic advantage? Are you kidding me?" she asked him, because no way was he that stupid. "They're bargaining chips in whatever game you're playing." She didn't add that she was too, now, because she'd just put a bullet in anyone that came after her. She wasn't anyone's victim, end of story. The warning look made her grin a second later, though. Reaction. She liked that. Made him seem more human, reminded her less of Thomas, when it came right down to it. "That look isn't going to send me scurrying," she assured him, simple, and without any push to the words.
His look of surprise, along with his assertion about not killing people, was met with an incredulous look, and she tipped his head back once the blood was gone from his temple, getting the light in the right place to see if he needed stitches. "Your blackmail didn't work, McKellar," she reminded him; they wouldn't be here if it had. "I asked you once, so here we go again: Are you trying to stay out? And why the fuck do they want you back in so badly? Well, no, now they're willing to kill you. So, why did you suddenly become less valuable? Or did you just become too dangerous all of a sudden?" She rolled her eyes. "Where am I coming to, exactly?"
Silver sobered. He closed his eyes to avoid the drip of antiseptic as she cleaned his forehead, and he didn’t speak for a little while. His breathing rasped a little in the back of his throat, moving dry air over a horribly split lip. He smelled of rust and abuse, dirt and sweat, all tinged with a hint of gunsmoke and whipped desert air. “They’re not bargaining chips. I don’t let my enemies use anyone against me. Once gone, they are... gone.” Silver did not negotiate. He exacted payment, but he would not rescue, would not save. Such paths were like Wren’s, and everyone was a victim. “My enemies know that. It’s nice your bosses don’t.” Silver didn’t work with partners for a reason. If they were captured, they were lost, and no one liked to think of being lost when they were still alive.
“One little assassin doesn’t mean the blackmail isn’t working. It just means I had a balance shift somewhere in one of them. You think I have them all set up like dominoes? They work independently. And you identified which one is my problem.” He coughed some dust out of the back of his throat. “You didn’t bring anything to eat?” he asked, hopefully, twisting the lid off the beer and ignoring the cigarettes.
She moved onto his lip, once she was sure his temple didn't need stitches. Her fingers were calloused as they tipped his chin up more, and she wet a clean pad to dab against that split lip, making sure it wasn't deep enough to need more than a good cleaning. "You can't control your enemies," she said simply. She'd known plenty of agents like him, ones that thought they held all the cards. No one held all the cards, and anyone who did was in for a world of hurt. "I didn't expect a blown up warehouse, or a dead maid, or a hospitalized kid. Can't predict what your enemies are going to do, McKellar. No one's that good," she explained. "My bosses would use Justine and Wren against you in a hot second, and we both know it." She scoffed. "Justine is a kid, a dumb naive one, and Wren is a trouble magnet. They both look really attractive when it comes to turning the tables on you."
She gave him a look. "No. I didn't bring anything to eat. I wanted to make sure you weren't bleeding out. Sue me, you stubborn idiot," she explained, stepping back and letting him swig on the beer before motioning to his shirt. "Off. Let's see if whatever you're guarding is more than a contusion," she said, all business. "I think you have a lot of enemies, and eventually they'll start working together against you. You need better insurance than what you have, because this is a bad sign."
He waited impatiently until she was done with the lip, and he sniffed through the sting of the antiseptic one more time. The smell of his own blood annoyed him more than sickened him, and he put out a hand to ward her off for the two seconds it took to tip the bottle up and empty half of it in one long pull, beard-roughened throat working a couple seconds in the effort. After that he dropped his hand and let her get on with what she was doing. He looked her right in the eyes and there wasn’t a lot of space between them to interrupt it. It was a mild look, and in the surface of his eyes there seemed to be no concern. “I can ballpark what they’ll do, and I can make it so that they’d be very stupid to take a path I don’t want them to take. Part of that is making them aware that they can’t use anyone against me. That’s part of working with me, Main. I don’t negotiate. I don’t ransom. I’d be sad if something happened to the people I care for, but I am not Luke Brandon.”
Once she backed up enough he took another pull off the bottle. “Cracked rib,” he said, instead of cooperating with the shirt. “Lifting my arm isn’t something I feel like doing right at the moment, if it’s all the same to you.”
"You can't ballpark anything, or we wouldn't be here," she reminded him. Plain, blunt and direct, because there was no point in being otherwise. When she was sure that his lip didn't need sewing, she stepped back and gave him a serious look. "So if they took someone, you'd just let them? You wouldn't do anything? I get that makes you stronger than the rest of us, McKellar, but it's also bullshit. I don't buy it." Maybe it wasn't important that she buy it. Maybe it was only important that the people he pissed off bought it. But she knew how the agency worked, and sometimes they took things out to make a point - no ransom, no chance to rescue anyone. That was just the business, and it was why a good agent never took their work home. Why they held onto their covers all the time, even with people they loved. She wasn't very good at that, but then she'd always been too emotional beneath the surface.
"Cracked rib. Alright. We cut it off and tape you up," she said, and she kicked the inside of his leg again. She was doing him a favor, and she was in a shitty mood, and she wasn't inclined to deal with him acting like a little boy. Oh, she knew it would piss him off, but at least that was honest; she was in the mood for honest.
Silver was amused at her assessment. One slight shift in one of many balances, and she assumed he was incapable of making it work. This was why she was still working the job, he imagined. “I take precautions, more than you could possibly know. But if all those fail me, then my cooperation wouldn’t save anyone. You know as well as I do what happens to prisoners of no value on trade of intelligence or cooperation. It would be stupid.” He saw in her face that she couldn’t believe it, wouldn’t enact it, and he thought of every reaction he’d ever heard to the phrase we do not negotiate with terrorists. He saw she couldn’t accept it, but maybe she could understand more why he thought she was absolutely insane to have a child and still be in this game.
“Stop kicking me,” he said, annoyed at her attitude. “If you want to leave, leave. It’s a favor, not slavery. Whatever else you have going on, if you can’t leave it at the door, you’re no help to me.”
"This is why I hate this fucking job sometimes," she said honestly. She wasn't cut out for so many aspects of it. She hadn't been when her father had forced her into this life, and she was still a bad fit. She was lethal, and she could kill without blinking or having guilt about it. She believed in the job, and she believed in her division. But she cared too much, and she always had. It was her pressure point. "I wouldn't be able to do it," she admitted, giving him a look that was thirty-plus years of candor in a woman who had already figured out what mattered too much to part with. "There are people I would do anything to save," she admitted with a shrug. It was as simple as that. We do not negotiate with terrorists was all well and good, as long someone she loved wasn't being held.
She gave him a look. "Don't be an ass, alright? You have shit. I get that. Your ass is on the line. I get that too. I have a dead college kid looming over my head and a little girl that won't stop having nightmares. I'm pissed off and, unlike you, I care about one of my friends too much kill the woman he's in love with." Alright, yeah, she was having trouble leaving that at the door. She took a deep breath, and she grabbed for the scissors in the kit and started on the hem of his shirt. "I can't just turn it off," she added apologetically.
Silver’s annoyance faded. He leaned back in the chair as much as he was able, and he pulled his arm out of the way, demonstrating that it was not the arm itself that was injured, but pretty much everything underneath it. His opponent had beaten most of his side black and blue, and there was enough dried blood to make the riot of bruises even more of a kaleidoscope than need be. Silver was keeping his breathing light for good reason, and he wasn’t sitting upright, either. A scattering of dust and sweat suggested that Silver hadn’t stopped at killing the man--he’d gone on and disposed of the body, too, and from the amount of dirt, probably on his own. With a cracked rib.
“I’ve been careful,” he said, quietly. “Nobody can hack Tony’s phone, nor track anything that came from it. My relationship with Wren is as much as any other clients, if they were watching that closely.” He hadn’t been able to prevent Justine from sticking her nose in, but he had made it very obvious where she came from, and her father’s status and the problems any injury would cause should keep her safe; especially when Silver’s cooperation could not be gained from it.
She frowned at the bruising when she cut away the shirt, and she didn't bother trying to clean off the telltale dust. It would only hurt, and it wouldn't make anything better, since nothing was protruding through the skin. She just grabbed the large gauze from the kit, once she'd managed to get the shirt out of the way, and she unfolded it and crouched in front of him, at stomach level. "Sit forward, and try to stay still. It'll feel better if it's snug," she said, the voice of experience. It might not help heal anything, but it definitely helped to have limited mobility when it came to cracked ribs. It said something that she didn't even worry about the man lying dead in the desert somewhere. If there was something the job taught agents early it was that they were all expendable.
She wound the gauze tight, and then she tied it off before rolling back onto her heels. She wasn't sure she bought what he was saying about Justine and Wren but, maybe, that ruthlessness he'd mentioned earlier would keep them safe. Either way, she couldn't tell Luke about that comment, or the kid would explode. She raked the strands that had fallen free of the ponytail away from her face, and she reached for her cooled gun without standing. "What do we do next?" she asked, because she was great at getting in and out, getting intel, getting a kill shot in. But blackmail wasn't her area. "And you're lucky he didn't just snipe you. I would have sniped you."
“Not too tight.” It would feel better if it was taped up tight, but it wouldn’t heal as well. Breathing deeply hurt like hell, but he was used to that, and he and Tony had a brief moment of silent commiseration, as it felt a lot like it had when that magnet had done a number on Tony’s chest piece. Silver too had some experience with getting battered, though not as much as Max did. He had a feeling she was more a soldier than a spook; spies were supposed to operate on information, not shoot at each other.
“You can’t snipe me,” Silver said absently, looking down at her work and testing it with a forced inhale that made him wince. “I don’t have paths and any place there’s a clear shot has a camera pointed at it.” One of his brown eyes gave her a wicked glint. “In case you were getting ideas.” Slowly, experimentally, even, he stood up. “Now I gather some intel and pay some visits. You can drive. That way if they get desperate and try to take me out right there you can drive the getaway car.” This was said with deadpan humor.
"You big baby," she said when he told her not to wrap it too tight. He was right about her being a soldier. Years in the Army gave her skills that worked well for the CIA, and she was good at what she did, but she was still military through-and-through. As for wrapping things too tight? Max wasn't about recovery. She was about getting through the job, and her medical skills reflected that. The goal was to keep going until the asset was out, or until the intel was obtained, or until the target was down. She wasn't a desker, and she wasn't a thinker. It had been one of her bigger problems in Seattle, the fact that she was used to following orders, not coming up with her own strategy.
"You're too cocky, McKellar. I've seen that trait take down better agents than you," she said, standing from her crouch and slipping her firearm back in its holster. "There's always a clear shot for a sniper. You leave the house? That's all it takes. If someone can get close enough for all the pictures in your file, then they could have shot you with a sniper rifle just as easily as with a camera. And don't give me a line about being safe in public, and that mitigating risk. You know that the right people don't care about collateral damage." She slipped her jacket back on. "Let's go."
Silver stood where he was. He examined her face, her bearing, and again it was military that faced him. He detected the difference in her approach and her opinions. It wasn’t arrogance for him, it was preparation. It was long-term planning. The fact that she’d shipped her kid down here told Silver that Max Main’s version of long-term planning was six months ahead and a lot of emotionally optimistic hope. Silver did planning in a different way; he had chosen his existence very carefully, and he had a picture of most people who also had a candid picture of him. Of course, a sniper wouldn’t care about that if he got the shot in, but very bad things would happen to a lot of important people if Silver died by violent means. That was why the assassin had gone to such trouble--the intent was to make it look natural, probably induced heart attack. Otherwise why risk a needle?
No, the assassin’s approach told Silver that most of his precautions were in order. Collateral damage was just that, collateral. There was such a thing as acceptable risk, and Silver balanced it on quality of life. Silver was a strategist in the field, his own master, and he made decisions based upon the information at hand. Max made decisions based on who she loved and who got killed, and one of these days that was going to make her very sorry--but then, maybe it had already. Silver was willing to bet that Thomas Brandon made decisions the same way and for the same reason. His son certainly did. And how had that helped him, or anyone he loved? It hadn’t. Wren and Gus were not any more safe and not any more healthy for it. In fact, they were both a wreck.
You’re a real bastard sometimes, Silver, Tony said, quietly. Silver shrugged. Someone had to make hard decisions, and Silver had decided a long time ago that he was going to make decisions for himself. He blinked twice at Max and then started walking. “Actually, you can just drop me in the city limits. I can take it from there.”
Max had no idea what had gone through his mind during that long, hard stare, but his change of tune made her cross her arms over her stomach and give his back a long, hard stare in return. Oh, she hadn't followed him. No, see, she was emotional, and she was done with men's whimsies. Seattle had taught her that in spades. "McKellar," she called out calmly. "It doesn't work that way. You don't bring me out here, get me involved, and then treat me like your personal taxi when you don't like my opinion." She moved past him then, toward her truck, and she didn't look back until she was at the door. She opened her door, and her door alone. "Next time you feel like turning into an asshole mid-conversation, call Wren. She might put up with it, but I got tired of that shit in Seattle." She climbed in the truck and started the engine, knowing well enough that he'd gotten there somehow, and he could get away from the range the same way he'd arrived.
Silver looked at her like she was crazy. He called people because they were capable, reliable, or had skills he didn’t have. There were a lot of skills he didn’t have, but he wasn’t suffering that much from the recent head injury. “You have to decide whether you’re worried about collateral damage or not,” he said, stopping several feet back when she crossed the empty parking lot. “First you are, and now you’re not. So far you’re not really that involved, not yet.” She’d done a number on his shirt and he sighed, looking down on it before shrugging off the pieces and folding them three times over the flat of his fingers. “You’re telling me now you were just complaining, and you still want to be involved?”
"I wasn't complaining, you impossible sonofabitch," she said, giving him a look that said she was wondering how hard he hit his head. "I was being straight with you about the shit you're in. Sorry if you don't like the truth." She decided, right then, that Silver didn't interact much socially, and she couldn't tell if that was because he jumped to conclusions all over the place, or if he jumped to conclusions because he didn't interact socially. It was all chicken vs. egg, though, and it didn't matter in the end. "If I have a problem with something, I'll tell you. I have a lot of problems, but trust me, I won't couch them as opinions. I'll hit you with them outright. You're cocky, and you're too smug, and I don't buy the fact that you don't give a shit. Me? Yeah, I care about collateral damage, but only when it's someone I care about. You haven't put me in that spot yet. I'll let you know when you do."
Happy conversation about hard truths was not really all that common in Silver’s field of work, but he usually got along with people just fine, even really annoying people like Tony and really vicious people like the ones he’d worked with on the job. Maybe that was because nine times out of ten people didn’t know what the hell he was talking about through all the metaphors. There weren’t any of those now. He thought it was probably because she didn’t like taking orders even if that was all she did, and he also thought it was because spies didn’t work in teams. Silver could only operate from his own perspective, and in the end his judgment was all that mattered to him. Well--maybe Tony’s, too, because he would need Tony’s help. Tony wasn’t saying anything, though. It wasn’t like he was a big team player, either.
Short-sighted. And judgmental. Silver shook his head. “No. We’re already in potential collateral damage. I know I’m in hot water. And you can tell me that I’m cocky after you get out of the job and survive it for a few years. Until then, you haven’t done what I’ve done. You also don’t want to do what I’m doing, and you’re only helping because you’re a friend. If things start to go up in smoke, your collateral is the first thing they’re coming after. It’s too risky for you.” He pointed his chin at the road. “I’m doing you a favor. I’ll get another ride.”
All of that got him one sentence. That was all, and a roll of her brown eyes. "Get in the fucking truck, Silver."
Whatever else Silver might be, he let people make their own choices. He would have sighed at the teenager eyeroll, but his ribs were trying to puncture his guts. So he used one arm, cautiously pulled up on the door and backed up to open it. Then he climbed in. He sat there for a second, catching his breath, and then he stared at the door, which was now open and somewhat out of his reach. “Damn.” Silver tipped sideways, caught hold of the door, and with bruising effort, pulled it shut. “I should have walked.”