germolene, disinfect the scene.

[heartlessglitch]

WHO: Danger & Dr. Frederick Chilton.
WHERE: Chilton's very private, very non-surveilled bedroom.
WHEN: Late, 08/25.
WHAT: Danger has a gift for her supportive, caring psychiatrist.
WARNINGS: Questionable surgical procedures.


[ It had, quite frankly, been a trying week for her. Danger was not entirely unfamiliar with death, as it were-- and this was not her first time being resurrected by the Porter. But the circumstances were unique. Not since Charles Xavier had attempted to eliminate her as a threat towards the X-Men had someone she genuinely cared for, in whatever twisted capacity, actually hurt her this way. Caught her off guard. Gotten the better of her.

That was the part she was unused to. She had become too comfortable, her sharp logic sedated by whatever she had thought she'd had with that man. And in the aftermath, her emotions were confused, conflicted. Ever more complicated. A matter that was not at all helped by the fact that her psychiatrist had chosen this particular moment to make himself a greater nuisance to her than usual. He'd insulted her-- insulted her competence, implied that her emotions made her weak. That she'd become too human.

Her feelings towards that particular sentiment were unresolved too.

It was better, at least, when her powers were finally restored to her. Being in her mechanical form gave Danger some regained sense of power and strength. Whatever vulnerability she'd felt in her flesh and bone, being trapped in it (no matter how acquainted she'd become with that body), it vanished as soon as she reclaimed her metal. At the same time, only then-- with her systems online and aware again-- did she realize the extent of the damage that aggravating little man had done to her security system at his residence.

Well. Here was something she could control. At least without the security, it even more effortless to let herself into his house, to walk herself down the hall unseen to where she knew his bedroom to be. ]

Comments

[slightlyoffchilt]

[Chilton had been nearly asleep, soundly situated in his bed. He wore only a tight, short sleeved light blue shirt and matching boxer briefs, with nothing else but his freshly cleaned bedsheets to mask his vulnerable body. He had spent the hour prior just reading, alone, cloistered away from his remaining housemates. The eerie quite rested well with his mood -- Chilton had, in his calculation, quite a lot to configure.

Danger was, of course, topping the list. Her fatal rendezvous with Abel Gideon deeply cut into his project plans, as if it took only some mortal coil to abbreviate his entire Heropean effort. It wasn't yet clear, if Gideon's betrayal would accelerate or derail Chilton's experiment concerning Danger's psychological behavior; waiting forced Chilton to become antsy. He had been neglecting his social schedule (charity balls included), if only because he couldn't deprive himself of rolling these values over and over in his mind, plotting every conceivable conclusion. A multiverse was spawned just by this simple query: who is Danger now?

It was almost ironic, how Chilton found himself still plagued by the identity crises of his patients. The marrow of the irony, however, was eclipsed by the realism of simply a bad habit. Chilton couldn't help himself, sometimes.

He kicked off the airy, Egyptian cotton sheets, his lungs sighing out agitation. At least, he thought, he needn't worry about being spied upon; the compromise he had forged with Danger he now declared null and void. This darkness, this privacy, was his to seize and revel in. At last, Chilton could appreciate the hovering humidity of loneliness.

He never heard Danger approaching.]

[heartlessglitch]

[ As the good doctor was reveling in these peaceful moments of privacy, Danger was making her way through the house to shatter his reprieve. For a machine, a being made out of wires and metal, she moved almost silently, each step consciously precise. Heat vision confirmed the locations of the other warm bodies present in the residence-- all convenient to avoid, to pass undetected except for the pet, a dog that she swiftly silenced with a quick dose of an animal tranquilizer. A more humane solution, she was sure, than Hannibal Lecter would have provided, given in the same circumstances.

The door was the least of her obstacles. She twisted the knob, moving with efficiency the second she stepped into the bedroom-- shutting and locking the door behind her, crossing towards him. The mattress dipped under the weight of armored limps, but she still moved with purposeful, deadly grace against the soft surface. It took her seconds to get a hold of him, gripping him in that unyielding steel grip as she flipped him onto his back and pinned him down, putting a significant portion of her weight onto the back of his thighs.

Finally-- only then-- did she lean down and greet him lowly: ]

Good evening, Doctor.

[slightlyoffchilt]

[He had no time to struggle, no time to elude her alloyed grasp. Panic surged as her steel pushed against the back of his thighs, pressing hard against the muscles twitching beneath her force. Torn from his halfway sleep, Chilton felt submerged in a disorienting darkness. Only when Danger spoke, only when she leaned towards him, did he identify the mechanism pinning him to his own bed. Consciousness snapped into being, and he took a series of sharp, shallow gasps.]

Danger. [He said it like a warning, as if hoping its echoed would trickle into the past, warning the Chilton of two minutes ago.] You're back.

[Back to her true form, he meant. Back to her normal.

His unease was born more from the abrupt awakening, and the pressure against his flesh. Chilton understood that Danger was angry, frustrated, that she felt betrayed and was likely confused -- and all were emotions made concrete because of Abel Gideon. Not Chilton himself.

He thought her erratic behavior, while unnerving, was nevertheless controllable. The unconventional greeting was not something he found disturbing in of itself -- after all, the man was committed to his diagnosis of her.]

To what do I owe the pleasure?

[heartlessglitch]

[ She was so much more aware in this body-- she could sense that moment of panic, that spike in his heart rate, and she felt some satisfaction in it. How lucky for the good doctor that she didn't intend to make good on all those threats of harm and death she'd made in the past. In her opinion, the man was vulnerable. Especially without her watchful eye. He was, after all, only human.

Did she enjoy his helplessness? Perhaps so. Maybe he was right about her, to some extent. Maybe that was irrelevant, when she had him pinned underneath her unyielding metal chassis, trapped on his belly and at her mercy. ]

Do I require a specific reason, Doctor?
Or has my brief absence made you so unused to my company in bed?

[ Mockery. The mechanical hum of her voice was unfriendly. And this was certainly not a social call by any means. Her mere presence was a threat at his back. If she needed air, she would have been breathing down his neck. ]

As it happens, I have something to give you.

[slightlyoffchilt]

[Certain phrases littered throughout linguistic history as inherently ambiguous, or evolutionarily ironic. Specific twists of tongue could indulge two very different connotations at once -- case in point, the fact that Danger declared she had something to give Chilton.

Context illuminating: Chilton was one his stomach, his mouth halfway submerged in rumpled sheets, his vision limited to staring ahead at the direction in which Danger had forced his face to look. And she had something to give to him.

If he wasn't substantially afraid moments before, if his panic had been little more than the cold, blunt shock from the abruptness of waking, that all completely shifted now. He wasn't deluding himself into thinking this midnight visit was one made amicable. His muscles twitched in quicker squeezes beneath Danger's hold, and the skin between his shoulder prickled. She was mocking him, as she pinned him down. She was enjoying this.]

What if I don't deserve it? Whatever it is -- that you're giving me?

[His voice, in contrast to her low and composed tone, was sharper, higher. His voice was on the verge of shouting out for help, a cry he would commit to even if half of his efforts would be muffled by the tangle of bedsheets.

He felt so exposed, with his face and front forced down. He felt so helpless. All it took was Danger to decide she wanted to do something, and he would be held vulnerable for her inspection. And what did he have?

His tongue.]

What if I yell out?

[heartlessglitch]

You more than deserve it, Doctor.

[ Unflinching certainty. She had made up her mind to do this-- she'd convinced herself of the logic, of the justification, and now she would be unyielding. His struggle against the heavy, punishing weight of her metal chassis was nothing more than a small, vague nuisance. His words were certainly more trying on her patience.

One hard hand pressed between his shoulder blades, keeping him pressed against the mattress and giving her some leverage to grab a fist full of his shirt at the collar, to rip until his back was exposed. ]

If you would like to risk someone finding you this way, then certainly, be my guest.
I have no objection to your housemates knowing exactly what kind of sniveling coward you are, Frederick.
Though I might suggest that it would be more productive for all of us if you would simply hold still.

[slightlyoffchilt]

[Chilton calcified his muscles, under those words. It was true, that the humiliation of discovery competed with his rising paranoia of what Danger was doing -- when she ripped the back of his shirt open, he pressed his mouth into the bedding, to mute his yelp of surprise. Despite the references and allusion of intimacy, it was quite contextually clear that this was anything but; she was going to hurt him. Perhaps not physically (though it was difficult to dissuade himself from that outcome, in this position), but she was going to exert herself, her power, over his supine, subjugated form.

And he really did not want his housemates to play witness to that.]

I won't draw attention. [He whispered, lips now parted from the mattress.] I won't fight you. [He was, like she asserted, quite cowardly. Chilton considered it more as pragmatic, of course, a matter of knowing what battles could be won.]

Just. Don't hurt me, Danger.

[heartlessglitch]

[ There was a certain special satisfaction she felt in how readily he yielded to her, how nearly tangible his anticipation of pain was. Don't hurt him, he asked. If she were the type, perhaps she would have sneered. But her face remained impassive, a metal mask void of emotion. In these moments of control, she betrayed so little of her thoughts and intentions.

Purposefully, she dragged a cool fingertip down the length of his spine. ]

In the words you are so fond of using with me:
This is for your own benefit.
Rest assured.

[ And, of course, as he assumed, an assertion of her own power.

There was a soft click then, and a gentle whirr of gears as the metal plate at the very tip of her index finger drew back to expose a tiny pronged chip, no larger than the head of a nail. Especially designed for the good doctor. She pressed those spike-like prongs ever so slightly against his skin, just resting it against his lower back before abruptly pushing, forcing the little piece of hardware to embed itself into his flesh. ]

[slightlyoffchilt]

[He listened to the whirr -- he knew she wanted him to fear it, to anticipate with panic. And he did. That sinister sound bellowed with his imagination; he couldn't see what she was doing, Danger had him pinned down so tightly. He couldn't turn around, even at this angle.

When she had her fingertip stroll down his spine, he had eased into the idea of a humiliating, but not uncomfortable experience. Chilton immediately edited that assumption, once that whirr screamed.]

What benefit --

[And then -- the puncture. Less of a puncture, more of a jab. Less of a jab and more of a full-throated thrust.

He yelled out, a noise halfbred with surprise and pain.]

What is that?

[Panic warming his mouth, flooding like saliva would.]

What have you done?

[To me. What have you done to me, he meant. But he was facedown upon his own bed, his back exposed from a ripped shirt. Chilton didn't want to linguistically victimize himself, as well.]

[heartlessglitch]

[ She took her time in answering him, letting the panic permeate his body before she responded. In her mind, she was appreciating the stark differences between them at that moment-- her, cool and calm, steady and immoveable above him while he squirmed, afraid and so, so very human. Maybe she had fallen prey to the killer that he had narrowly escaped, but she refused to humor the idea that her death somehow made her less competent than he. She meant to crush the idea of her inferiority mercilessly.

This was her way of reestablishing her control. Reaffirming their place with one another. ]

It is a monitoring device.
The chip is designed to provide me with biofeedback and other relevant data.

[ There was no reason to keep him pinned down now, but still, she kept him face-down against the mattress. Emphasizing her point, perhaps. ]

I suggest you do not attempt to remove it yourself, as it would be a rather uncomfortable experience for you.
And of course, I would know if any such attempts were made. Immediately.

[slightlyoffchilt]

[He knew what she kept him there, with his mouth pressed against the snugly-sheeted mattress. He knew that she enjoyed the sense of power, the scepter of control -- it was only natural, for someone of her design. Someone powerful and betrayed and, now, insecure.

Chilton knew that, by subjugating him to her will, she could recalibrate her identity.]

I cannot believe you.

[But, in fact, he quite honestly could. This response was brutal and psychologically logical.]

Managing such -- such depths of obsessive -- of possessive violation!

[Chilton could only voice his disgruntlement, given that Danger otherwise completely controlled the situation. And she was, in all probability, going to continue to do so.]

[heartlessglitch]

[ She wouldn't deny it. She was an obsessive creature-- that was only natural, given her capability to analyze everything to the very last detail, to turn it over and over again in a tireless mind-- and possessive as an extension of a short but emotionally tumultuous life. Danger was young and angry and powerful. This was a demonstration of that. Underneath the cool and controlled surface, she was vindictive. Volatile. ]

If you are surprised, perhaps we are due for another session.
Obviously your understanding of me is not as complete as you might wish.

[ Her voice was at once subtly mocking and detached, aloof. As if it was nearly beneath her abilities to hold this human hostage, pinned underneath her like an insect. ]

Will you apologize for what you have done, Doctor?