Mara Jade is SHIELD's ☕ Queen (marajade) wrote in thedoorway, @ 2014-11-29 17:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, !network post, james potter, mara jade |
RP Log; James Potter & Mara Jade
Who: James Potter & Mara Jade
When: 20 November (slightly backdated)
Where: Coffee shop in NY.
What: A discussion of trust and magic and watches.
Rating: Low
Status: COMPLETE.
There was a reason why James was not cut out for normal jobs. He had a strong work ethic when he was genuinely motivated by the work, but that required either emotional investment or sheer enjoyment of his work, which simply wasn’t the case with most jobs. He’d enjoyed working at the Youth Center up until the moment they’d lost Harry to the tesseract the first time, and then it had ceased to be an adequate substitute for his own son, because he’d missed Harry more than ever for having met him as an adult. He’d stuck with it for a while longer, but after he and Sirius had gotten the idea to go into business selling their creative inventions together, he’d quit. The money was decent enough, if a bit unreliable, although getting on board with Stark Industries had helped. He was still fielding questions about the watches himself, however, and in this particular instance it had become obvious that maybe it really was better to let someone else handle it for him. But he would have had to answer these questions anyway, probably, and James Potter never backed down from a challenge, even if it meant that this particular person didn’t end up taking him up on his offerings to help. He wasn’t sure what to think about Mara, because his own emotions surrounding the prospect of people faking their disappearance were clouding his judgment a bit, which was not to say that they weren’t important instincts to pay attention to. He always, unfailingly, followed his emotions like a compass, which had its ups and downs when it came to interpersonal relationships. They’d left it on a decent note, though, so he wasn’t completely dreading the conversation. He headed into the cafe, and made his way to the counter to order his drink. In this case, a plain coffee with milk and a single cube of sugar, with a very chocolatey croissant to go with it-- because for as much as he had a sweet tooth, he preferred it in edible form, and he liked his drinks to cleanse his palate a bit so that he could enjoy the sweets even more. Which wasn’t to say he hadn’t indulged in a few pumpkin and peppermint drinks, when he was eating something more plain. It was all about balance. When his pastry was handed over, he turned to survey the cafe for the redhead (he already had a keen eye for that, thankfully), lingering by the counter for a moment to wait for his drink. -- It was at least partially a respect for Sam that had made Mara Jade pursue the watch at all. She had been burned fairly badly by the trackers and she wasn't interested in making it easy for anyone else to track her presence here - particularly since that presence had the possibility of leading someone to Nick. And so had nearly anyone else, with the exception perhaps of Skywalker, asked, the answer would have been a resolute, but apologetic 'no'. But Sam asked, and Mara knew he was cognizant of the secrecy she required at this point in her life and so she had given the matter more consideration than she might have otherwise. She didn't know James Potter, however, although she'd seen the Harry Potter films in her early time here and was aware of his story, which meant some personal interviewing was in order. Her inclination was to trust Sam, to trust his trust in Potter, and in general to believe that Potter absolutely meant what he said regarding tracking people here. However, his skittishness at removing or reversing the spell if need-be was a pause. Because while she didn't think she'd need to, and if she did need to she would have hardly done so without speaking to Sam first in nearly every scenario she could think of, she needed the possibility of it to be an option. And she'd sensed that Potter was not amused by her asking of it. So Mara Jade had taken what she knew of James Potter and had prepared for the interview like she would have any mission. No nonsense work apparel was traded out for something that invited friendly interaction, a simple dress and leggings with practical boots topped by a leather jacket and a scarf with a lion pattern on it. The outfit might not have been a typical one for her, but it was authentically Mara Jade, and perhaps all the more so for the intentionality behind her choice of each piece. As she approached the cafe she did so with the smallest of smiles on her lips. She entered the cafe and spotted Potter and gave him a small wave as she walked across to order an americano with just touch of whole milk. As she waited for them to put the espresso drink together she walked across to greet him: "You've ordered already? Or can I get you something?" -- The problem was not that he disliked her personally, not that he knew her very well. Mara seemed to be a perfectly nice person, in no way as insulting, condescending or irritating as Snape, and yet-- James couldn’t help but draw parallels. So much of what she said had reminded him of Snape’s rationalization of what he’d done to Lily, and he just couldn’t be objective about it. She had kept her temper, however, which was a point in her favor. He’d probably been rude, but he’d only been trying for honesty. He didn’t know what to make of his first impression of her in person, however. He had the strange feeling that she was attempting to win him over, with the offer to buy him a drink and maybe even the lion print on her scarf, and normally he thoroughly enjoyed being buttered up. But it felt a little manipulative, or maybe that was the lingering reminder of his least favorite Slytherin, who was a liar and a manipulator and also, a complete shit. Swallowing the mouthful of his croissant, James did his best to put that aside and give this woman a real, true second chance at a good impression. “Got it,” he said, grinning crookedly at her from behind his glasses, his hair perpetually and purposefully mussed. “Don’t worry about it. We’re here to talk about what I can do for you, right?” -- "I suppose," Mara said with a bit of a smile. There was something in his manner that was a bit of her nephew, a carelessness that belied what she knew he'd been through. She put her elbows on the counter while she waited for her drink and tilted her head in his direction. "To be honest, I'm inquiring after the watch because a friend asked if I would be on his. And as he's someone that is practically family and someone I respect a great deal and who means a good deal to me I'd like to honor the request if it's possible, but having HYDRA track you down and try to kill you and your team because your location information was posted to the Internet tends to make you a bit jumpy about anything that smacks of the possibility of being tracked." She kept her words light, but the seriousness of the matter and how much it had frustrated her was clear in her green eyes. Because she was reasonably certain James was telling the truth regarding the lack of tracking data. It matched with what she knew of the spell and magic available in his world that she had been able to read. She additionally believed him when he'd said he didn't intend to do anything of the like - and that the experiences he'd been through had informed that choice. What she needed was the promise that should she need to disappear it could be done -- would be done. And not because she believed she would need to but because there was the possibility of it and if she did need to there might be other lives at stake in the doing of it. Perhaps she'd been spending too much time with Nick Fury, but this was thinking two steps ahead into a possibility where the world knowing whether or not she was here would be a danger to herself or those she cared about. The espresso drink was slid across the counter to her and she offered a smile to the barista and inclined her head towards a table. "Shall we?" As she led the way towards the table she turned her head back over her shoulder and asked: "What do you know of the Jedi?" -- “HYDRA shot me,” James said, and then pointed at his shoulder where the bullet had hit. It was all healed now, although it was sometimes a little stiff in the cold weather. “So believe me, I’m not interested in helping them out.” He liked SHIELD well enough, and now he supposed that he liked SWORD as well-- Dorcas was working for them, and she seemed to have decent instincts about whether she was working for the good guys or not. He didn’t hold it against SHIELD that they had traitors in their midst. After all, his tiny circle of best friends had harbored a traitor, too. But that was the easy part. He could confidently guarantee her that the watch wasn’t going to track her location-- even if there was a spell that could do it, he and Sirius went to great lengths to protect their work against someone else tampering with it. Those were spells they’d learned when making the map, just to keep its true nature from being found out, but they’d certainly come in handy more than once. Sending messages during the war, for instance. Wrapping one hand around his drink, the other still holding his pastry, he followed Mara over to the table. “Heard the word before,” he said, tilting his head thoughtfully. “Moony’s told me about them, I think. Something to do with people having wars out in space?” -- Mara slid into a seat and placed her drink down on the table in front of her glancing over at him. Mostly she just got honesty off of him in spades, and she didn't believe that was just prior knowledge taking over. She nodded briefly at his shoulder. "If I thought you were interested in helping HYDRA we'd be having a very different conversation," she said wryly, with a hint of the former Emperor's Hand in the tone. She took a sip of her americano then and considered exactly what to say, but she'd decided honesty in the whys and wherefores would probably be helpful. And at least where the Jedi were concerned, and even her abilities as a Jedi, there was little that wasn't potentially an open book. "Star Wars," she mused with a bit of a smirk forming on her lips. "You haven't seen the films? You probably are one of the few people on the planet who haven't. Well, that makes this require a little more explanation, but we'll go with it. In my reality the Jedi are people who can touch the Force -- for all intents and purposes consider it like being able to do magic in your reality -- and who adhere to a certain viewpoint in doing so. We're protectors of the peace and guardians of justice throughout the galaxy. One of our abilities is the ability to sense other Jedi - particularly ones we have strong emotional connections to -- my future husband, nephew, sister-in-law, would probably qualify. "I spent the first two decades of my life without any family," she added seriously, looking over at him. "The ones I've found along the way, whether from my home, or whether the friends I'm closest to here, mean the world to me." -- “I don’t know if we could really call it a conversation,” James agreed, with a tone that nearly matched hers. “I’m not in the habit of talking to people who come into my home and attack me.” He also didn’t have the best track record with coming out on top in those fights. But getting shot had been an improvement over dying, of course. He gestured towards himself. “I’m a wizard. We don’t really have films in the magical community. I’ve seen more of them since I came here than I had in my entire lifetime beforehand.” Even though Remus did some of that, and so did Lily, it was not something James had ever taken to especially. He was a fan of all things made by Muggles, but things that required him to sit still to appreciate were more difficult. Even if they were entertaining. But he made a mental note that maybe he should see the films that she was talking about. They sounded pretty interesting. And he nodded, understanding, as she talked about her family. “So,” he said. “The real question that we’re dealing with here is, do you trust them enough to always know that you’re here in this world, even when that’s dangerous information? Because I think that’s a more important question than whether you trust me.” He still kept his hands curled around his coffee cup, but he hadn’t eaten or taken a sip for a good few moments, his full concentration on the conversation at hand. Then, he attempted to explain his viewpoint more clearly than he’d managed to do so far. “The watch is intended to let people know what’s happening to their loved ones, not mislead them. Putting your name on their watch means you always trust them with the information of whether you exist here, even when that’s dangerous information, even if you need to destroy the watch or reverse the spell to fool everybody else. If you can’t trust them with that, then you shouldn’t be signing your name to it. It’s that simple.” Someone else might have put that more delicately or diplomatically, but that had never been James’s style. Nevertheless, it was honest and heartfelt and he stood behind every word of it. “As for trusting me, I’ll help you in whatever way you choose to reverse the spell or destroy the watch, so long as it doesn’t involve lying to your friend. I won’t be able to do any of it from a distance, anyhow-- they’ll need to give me the watch to change the spellwork. And if you can trust me to know about it, then you ought to be able to trust your family with it, right? So I don’t really see what the problem is.” -- Mara nodded. She had gathered as much, but she also - from her understanding - knew that Potters wife had been from a non-magical community, and she had half expected the two would have seen them as large as it seemed they had been. Then again, when she matched up the timelines she realized they may have been otherwise occupied when the films were released. She listened and nodded. There was no one she would consider having her name on their watch that she would not absolutely trust them with the information. She knew Sam understood as well as anyone the possible dangers that she might face and any reasons she might ask to be removed. Skywalker hadn't asked for one - where she was concerned he didn't need to. She could minimize her presence in the Force enough that he wouldn't be able to sense her, but there shouldn't be any need to here. It was the sort of thing she typically only did if she needed to drastically reduce her usage or hide from someone who was strong in the Force, and as it reduced her abilities to utilize and pull on it, it wasn't something she would do frequently. Herc hadn't asked for one, but if he did, she knew he would also understand if she asked to be off of it. "If I didn't, we wouldn't be having this conversation, I would have said no outright, respect or no," Mara said simply. It was direct, but it was the truth. She wouldn't have bothered with looking into the device at all if she hadn't trusted Sam to hold the information. She trusted him with probably more information than she possibly ought to do but she could never be sorry for having done so. "I trust him implicitly, it's the world I don't trust." She looked over at James knowing he knew something about that. Unfortunately she also knew his friend had turned out to be untrustworthy, but it was a conversation that wasn't relevant to the current conversation. "But to answer your question - I would talk to him. It's not the sort of thing I would do without talking to him. I'm not cruel, and honestly I can think of no situation where I would need to go so far underground I wouldn't want him to know something even if it was only that he wouldn't be hearing from me for a while." "How does the magic work? If you cast the spell once, can you duplicate it without doing it again? I guess what I'm asking is - if he destroys it, is it possible for you to create another watch again if you haven't purposefully reversed the spell?" --- James nodded. He had jumped to conclusions, predictably, and if she’d seemed genuinely hurt about it, he might have apologized. Putting his foot in his mouth was something that he did frequently enough that he was comfortably familiar with the words I’m sorry. They didn’t seem to be necessary here, however, so he didn’t offer them. “I’d undo the spell, if you asked,” he said. “Probably safer that way. Anyone who’d come after you-- that’d be enough evidence. They wouldn’t have to… question your friend if they could see it for themselves.” He didn’t know who this person was, but he could guess that she’d want to protect them, and it made him like her better to know she’d trust her friends with the information. He also knew how dangerous that information could truly be, whether Snape believed it or not-- and he didn’t want her friend to be tortured, either. “And it could be redone later, as easily as doing it the first time.” He gave her another of his crooked grins. “Though of course if HYDRA asked, I’d tell them it could only be done once. No do-overs.” -- Mara cracked a half smile at that, and she picked up the Americano in front of her to take a sip. Having done so she leaned back in the chair and considered James Potter. The only question left really was whether or not she trusted James Potter, a man she didn't know, to hold that information, undo it if she asked it, to not speak of it to anyone if it came to that. It asked quite a bit for someone who wasn't prone to trusting total strangers. "Do you keep any record of who you're doing watches for? And who's on them? And if you are, could you not? On this one? That way if HYDRA comes asking, you don't have anything to tell them, because you never put me on anyone's watch." -- “Not records, exactly,” James said. “I’ve never been much for taking notes. But we’ve been keeping the signatures. Just to prove that we didn’t do it against anyone’s will, if that ever matters. There’s nothing that says they’re tied to the watches, specifically.” He hesitated, only for a moment. “I’d still like you to sign your name, just to prove you are who you say you are and you’re not making me track anyone else. But I can burn it afterward. You can watch me do it.” She was careful, more careful than James had ever been in his life, but then-- maybe if he’d been a more careful person, his story wouldn’t have ended the way it had. He could stand to do things a little more carefully to make sure someone else didn’t end up the same way. -- Mara nodded. It was reasonable enough. She suspected Natasha could have forged her signature, or her Natasha's, but there would be no point to doing so. They could play each other if necessary, but it wasn't something to be pulled out on a whim. She took another sip from the mug in front of her and sat it down on the table. "I'd like to be the one to burn it, but I'll do it in your presence. If that's acceptable, I suspect we'll make this work. I'm going to consider it again before I give you a final answer, but I'll contact you and as of this moment, I think this will be fine. I realize it's questions you aren't usually asked and I appreciate your taking the time to talk to me.” -- James considered that, and then nodded. “Deal,” he agreed. He understood the desire to burn the paper herself, and didn’t particularly care if she did it in his presence or not. The process of signing was enough to ensure that he wasn’t performing the charm for the wrong person. He shrugged. “I signed up for a bit more than I was expecting, with these watches. But they’re worth it, I think.” He took a swallow of coffee. “You can just let me know whenever you make up your mind.” -- "Then you'll be hearing from me in the next few days," Mara said simply raising her coffee mug to her lips and taking a sip. And probably he would be. Truth was, she didn't think there was any reason why it would be a problem based on her understanding of how the spell worked, but careful where something might potentially lead someone to Nick had become her default reaction and this was no exception. But she suspected she could tell Sam yes, and she was glad for that. She hadn't really wanted to tell him no. |