Who: Silver and Wren What: A favor Where: Caesars When: Recently Warnings/Rating: Nope
Wren’s last client had left an hour before, and she used the intervening time to shower and call for the cleaning staff to tidy the room. The room she was working out of was still in Caesars, in the Palace Tower and, while it wasn’t a suite, it was still a high-roller’s accommodation; anything less wouldn’t have been appropriate for her clients. She had it rented for two weeks, because she really didn’t think she was going to need any longer than that, and it was making a dent in her nightly earnings as it was, even for that short time period. But working out of the suite wasn’t an option, and she didn’t want to leave the hotel to visit clients in other hotels, not without a driver she trusted, not with Gus in the room downstairs.
By the time her appointed meeting time with Silver arrived, she had dressed in cream leggings and a sleeveless white tunic with a cowl neck. Her pale hair was pulled back and damp at the ends, and the circles beneath her eyes were fairly well hidden with a coat of loose powder. She was too pale to be healthy, the memory of almost drowning still showing itself in an occasional cough and in skin that was bordering on ghostly, but the pallor suited her, and she felt surprisingly calm as she looked out the window onto the strip.
She knew MK had gone, even without any official notification, and she was trying to decide whether to reach out to her old friend, or whether to accept that the bridge was burned. She was hurt by everything MK had said, and she was hurt by her friend’s unexpected reaction to her own attempts to help, and she wasn’t sure she could get past it just then, not when she was waiting for the world to slam down around her. It was strange, she thought, how everything changed so quickly with the presence of a someone so small.
She crossed to the door, and she propped it open, and then she went to the room’s bar and poured herself a whiskey; she thought she might need it for this conversation.
Silver wasn’t having a pleasant day, either. He and Tony were in the midst of a vicious argument about the Avengers, antagonized because Silver thought Tony was acting ten years old about Thor and anything related to Thor. Silver was tense to begin with, unearthing some old contacts he had no business speaking to while trying to avoid the agents that he suspected were keeping an eye on him for the Company. The half-healed stitches hurt and itched by turns, the scar was going to be ugly since Tony had ripped them, and to compound the irritation issue, Silver was convinced that Wren had managed to plow straight ahead toward inevitable prison through her own rash actions. That was one thing, but he didn’t know how happy the boy was going to be even if Luke Henry did turn out to be any sort of parent, and that made Silver angry. Silver was usually pretty good at accepting and smoothing out the extremes of his emotions, but this one was sticking to him and setting everything else at edges. He felt like hitting something, but Tony wasn’t a possibility, so he just went around imagining it.
Silver wasn’t wearing one of his familiar cheap black suits. He was unarmed and staying that way, clear because the loose linen shirt he was wearing would have revealed anything to the contrary. He had squares of bandages up his side and an undershirt to cover it, and jeans that had one too many oil stains for the washer to reach. Silver stepped through the door, but cautiously and slightly sideways. The incident at Caesar’s made all his old instincts stand on end.
Wren heard the door open the remainder of the way, and she turned to look, mid-pour. She didn’t share his concern about the room, since strangers walked in and out of it all evening (though there was no sign of their presence now). It didn’t have a security system built in, no way to call for help, but Wren wasn’t worried about being hurt while she worked; she was too good with the tools of the trade, and she hadn’t forgotten those lessons from Seattle, all those years ago. The pallor and delicacy, it was all part of the costume, at least when it came to this.
“Silver,” she greeted, lifting the decanter of whiskey in silent question (would you like some?). She had a few hours before returning to her own suite, and one drink surely wouldn’t hurt. She wasn’t accustomed to seeing him dressed down, always picturing him in the work suit, and she smiled a little at the stains in the denim. Her eyes, so accustomed to looking for hidden injuries beneath clothing, looked for the subtle indication of a bandage at his side, lingered there, and then her attention returned to his face. “Come in.”
Silver looked from side to side, as if he might see the boy in some hidden corner, even though logically he knew he would not. “Hello.” He didn’t bother to hide his feelings about her and the situation, that wasn’t his way, but it also wasn’t much reflected in the physical way he moved as much as it was in his eyes and face. His sunglasses were in a front pocket. He came all the way in, met her smile with a slight quirk of brow that said he wasn’t sure what there was to smile at, and slowly shook his head at the offer of decanter.
It was, perhaps, an indication of the life she’d lived, the fact that she could smile about little things, even in the face of everything else. The compartmentalizing, it was a skill learned young, with teasing phone calls and moments of laughter on a living room couch across the country, all those many years before, while everything crumbled around her ears. But the memory of MK made her sober, and she stepped away from the bar with the glass in her hand, taking a small sip as she crossed to the room’s seating area and sat, motioning for Silver to join her in the opposite chair. “I thought about what you said,” she told him, since she could tell he wasn’t going to want to bother with small talk.
Silver-sans-suit was a little odd. He gave off this feeling of watchfulness, of absolute attention to everything she did. Perhaps the suit and the glasses set off the effect of this impression and he had it all the time, but his eyes went down and took in the dress just as he had the room, and her color, and the alcohol. He followed her over to the chairs, at ease amongst all this wealth just as he was among very wealthy people, but he sat stiffly so he didn’t put the pressure of his ribs against the skin over his hip and side. Once he was there he let his shoulders droop slightly and rubbed his face, a gesture of fatigue that he’d never used in front of her before. “Oh?”
“You aren’t well,” she commented, a statement about how tired he looked, how carefully he sat on the chair. Her gaze dropped to his ribs again, and guilt crossed her features. “Once upon a time,” she said, “I was the one who got hurt all the time, in order to keep people I cared for safe. Now, everyone I know is getting hurt because of me,” she said, and it was soft, cool, plain speaking. It was true, and she didn’t know if there was a middle ground. “I did research, as you suggested, and I don’t know who your contacts are, how much you can help me, but if the offer stands, then I’d like the assistance.” She shrugged a tiny bit, elegant shoulders and grace that had been with her a lot longer than the calm she exuded had been. “I know I’m an idiot, and I make terrible choices,” she added, no self-pity in the true statement; she was terrible at things like that.
Silver sighed. “I am fine,” was his response to her assessment of him. He was annoyed to be a source of guilt, and his eyes took on a certain flinty aspect that suited him more than the hazel warmth, which was only visible at close proximity in bright light. He looked away, at a window, and then back at her when she mentioned the assistance. “Just because your last choice was bad doesn’t mean all the rest need to be,” he said, with a testy cant to his voice that took some of the philosophy from the statement. Another sigh. “What do you need? A lawyer?”
“No. I can afford as many lawyers as I want,” she said truthfully. “Money isn’t a problem, Silver.” It never had been, not in years. “But you’re right, custody will take some time. Even if I turn myself in, tell my story and hope to implicate the family that took him from me in the first place, it will take time. They’ll appoint a temporary guardian, if they can. I was wondering if you knew anyone who could help? CPS is, ultimately, federal, and child kidnapping is federal jurisdiction. I just want him with someone who cares about him while things get sorted out with DNA tests and family court. Even Luke’s claim will take months.” She didn’t know if he could help, and she knew he wasn’t fine, no matter what he said otherwise. “And you’re not fine, but okay, I’ll leave it alone for now.”
It gratified Silver that Wren's request was on the boy's behalf, and not on her own, or worse, Luke Henry's. Silver was irritated at Wren, undoubtedly compounded by her continual decisions that left him out of her confidence and affections, but the majority of his anger was for Gus' situation. He shifted awkwardly around the stitches again. "I don't know anyone in Child Services personally. But a friend of a friend does, and I've been saving favors for a long time." He smiled faintly at her. "I might be able to get the case accelerated, and I know we can find a trustworthy caseworker." He paused, frowned. "I suppose you must turn yourself in? You can't explain the situation first...?" But his expression was doubtful. His own personal experiences with local law enforcement had never been good.
“I spoke to a lawyer this morning, a client. He says I’ll still get bail, even if I turn myself in, and then we can work on everything else as we wait on a trial date or a plea agreement. But I’ll have to hand Gus over, and that’s what worries me. I have blackmail images, ones that involve few men in CPS, but I don’t want to do this that way, not if I can help it. The lawyer says Luke’s paternity claim is irrefutable once DNA is done, and it will prove the birth certificate false. He says two months for custody, if Luke’s clean and has good legal counsel.” She looked away then, her expression falling. “But he says there will be a child protection order in the meantime, one that says I won’t be able to see Gus. I want to make sure he’ll be with his father or, barring that, with his grandfather in New York.” She looked back at him, and she smiled just a little. “I won’t even offer to pay you for your help.”
Silver was slowly (but surely) getting a sense of humor about that particular issue, and he allowed his mouth to relax. Some of the amber warmth returned to his eyes. "Avoid the blackmail. We--you," he corrected, blinking once, "want complete legality. You need to mention your concerns and accounts of abuse so they don't immediately return him to where he came from." Silver made another one of the thoughtful movements of his ribs and shoulders, thinking. "Is Luke clean?"
She smiled at the we, at the slip, and she sat back in the chair and relaxed a little, crossing her legs at the knee and smoothing the tunic down with a tug as her expression went warmer. “I thought it was a good idea too, being legal this time. I’m going to go in with a statement ready, if I do this. One that explains what happened four years ago. I have a doctor that saw me a few days after I gave birth who can corroborate, and I’m hoping walking in there on my own steam will make them more apt to listen. I have pictures of Gus’ bruises, though it doesn’t prove I didn’t put them there, but I think he’ll tell them the truth, if he can get over being scared of everything.” His question about Luke surprised her, and there was no doubt that she believed Luke to be entirely clean of any wrongdoing. “Luke has never done anything wrong, Silver. He has a college degree, a wealthy adoptive father, and very strong morals. I was always the one the one that danced too close to the dark.”
Silver made a soft indeterminate sound at the top of his throat, a kind of thoughtful one that combined his skepticism of the vigilante movement in Seattle and New York and Luke's corresponding presence there. He didn't know specifics about Luke's activities, hadn't dug deep enough to even come close to finding out, especially when he was moving. That would require a lot of legwork that Silver couldn't pursue and hadn't the resources to assign. He let it go. "So you think he's up to this?" he asked, which was a different question.
“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be asking you for this.” And there was truth to her response. She wouldn’t leave Gus with anyone she didn’t trust with him, and she knew that Luke - however angry he might be at her - would put that child before anything and everything in his life. “If you’re uncomfortable with Luke, then his father can serve as back-up. My lawyer says they’ll try to assign a temporary guardian within days. If you just have someone who can help with this one thing, then I think I could deal with anything else that happens. If I just know he’s safe.” She’d have to get DNA done beforehand, take it with her when she went to the police, but that was the only outstanding thing at this point. That, and Silver’s help.
Silver nodded. "I can find someone trustworthy in services, though I don't think anyone there isn't trustworthy. They're child services. But he can't go back to anyone that would hurt him." This, obviously, was all Silver cared about. "What are you going to tell them about your accomplice?" He thought about telling her about their easily traceable professional association, but held off because of the look on her face.
That was something she’d already considered, and she didn’t have a very good response. “I don’t know. I can tell them the truth, that she had no idea why I asked her to meet me at the church, that she thought he was mine to take, and that I’d just been hiding him. But we aren’t speaking right now, and I have no idea what she would say about me if it came to that. I’ll make sure they know she had no idea. She didn’t, Silver. Just like Luke, she was completely in the dark.” She hadn’t realized he might be implicated. It hadn’t occurred to her, and it was evident in the lack of worry for him in her gray eyes.
As far as Silver was concerned, Wren had done something very rash and very stupid, and like all actions that were rash and stupid, she'd dragged everyone she touched down with her. It was only her reasons that kept Silver from being angry enough not to speak to her. He thought of silver pools with mirror surfaces, and then he said, "We're all accessories, including anyone you have watching the boy now. I don't know what to do about that." He rubbed his forehead.
“But it wasn’t them; it was me,” she said with the sort of gullible naivete that was native to her, an innocence that still managed to peer out through the careful cool and the woman she’d become.”I’ll tell them.” She looked at him plainly, openly. “I spent a very long time doing anything and everything other people wanted. I sacrificed everything, and I never fought back. I’m going to fight this time, Silver, even if I started it poorly. None of you knew; that’s the truth, and I have enough money to make that stick. There’s very little that can’t be bought in this world. I can at least buy that.”
Silver smiled. He understood Wren's nature. If he did not, he wouldn't like her so much. "You can't buy ignorance. Once something is known, it's known." Take the guard at the gated community. "You can buy temporary silence, but it only lasts as long as that person wants it to. You can't erase the fact that we knew and assisted you when it was against the law." His eyes unfocused, thinking. "Perhaps disappearing. At least until the trial and custody is worked out, they won't look so hard. The doors are, at least, the ideal hiding place." He did not look especially happy about it. Tony was bitching about walking into this with open eyes.
She leaned forward, her fingers closing around his, arm stretched across the space between them. “I do have contacts. Not in the government, not anywhere that can help me with federal custody, but I can help,” she assured him. Blackmail, once Gus was safely situated, didn’t bother her, not when it came to keeping the people she cared about from taking a fall with her. “But okay, maybe just for a little while, if you think it’s safer,” she agreed, but she looked worried. She didn’t trust his door. Maybe it was because her own door was death waiting to happen.
Silver was not so sure. He had his own skeletons that Wren's little habits and blackmail material wouldn't do a thing about. He had all kinds of people that would be keen to turn any hot water he was in up to boiling just to get rid of him. Silver was the perfect example of someone who had knowledge that could not be erased.
He let her take his hand, however, and threaded his fingers through hers before twisting them gently away. Tony told him he was being stupid for the fiftieth time. "If you're going to do this, you had better do it soon. They're getting closer." He stood up. "I will make some calls about the boy's case and make sure he's looked after in the system."
“By the end of the week,” she promised him, looking up when he stood, but not standing herself. “Thank you, Silver. Nothing I can say can explain how much this means to me,” she said, and it was entirely heartfelt, entirely true, something raw beneath all the serenity. She almost squeezed his fingers again, but she refrained, and she just gave him a small nod in farewell.