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WHO: Billy Kaplan, Loki, Kate Bishop, John Mandrake, and some girl who goes by "Lizzie"
WHERE: At a stakeout which is actually a confrontation
WHEN: Saturday;
WHAT: Billy and Kate are tired of being lied to, Loki is being a stellar teammate, Mandrake is around to deal with his world stuff, and Lizzie is being confronted.
WARNINGS: Will add as needed

[Billy is there with Mandrake, half of his focus going to keeping the disguise - yes, he picked Teddy, but that's because he is really familiar with Teddy's face okay there is no other reason stop implying there's another reason - on Mandrake up and going, and the other half of his focus looking out at the place where Kate implied the Hornet might be.

The Hornet, of course, not being a real Hornet at all, but being a certain young Asgardian god.

He looks over at Kate, his eyebrows up a bit.]

Here's to hoping this works.

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[Here's the thing.

It's not that Billy doesn't care.

It's that Billy cares too much.

He looks down, then, and he can feel that gaping maw of what the hell did I get myself into staring back at him, like an abyss in his depression, and he really, desperately wants Teddy. He knows it's unhealthy.]

Wow, so, uh, airing this shit aside, none of that actually addresses anything Kate said. Good job with the shit flinging, though. Classy.

[And he turns, but his hand is still on Mandrake's arm.]

Hey, I'm not letting you go.

[He says that very softly, because he may not have known that, and he may not approve of that, but Billy is working really hard on second chances. Mandrake's been something of a bro. And he's trying.

He looks at Loki. That's directed at him, too, really. Maybe this is throwing a lot of things into sharp focus. How Loki manipulated him, but at the end of it, he owned up to it.

This girl, she can't just address it.]

Guys, Kate's right. This isn't about us.

[Mandrake bristles visibly-- not at the restraining hand on his arm, but at Kitty's words. His nostrils flare. He's angry beyond belief.]

You speak of convenience-- isn't it incredibly convenient you forget to mention that demons aren't people! They're dangerous, and evil-- really, I shouldn't be surprised that you'd defend them.

Isn't it convenient you forget to mention that "standing up for your beliefs" includes being the ringleader of a group of people who are responsible for lobbying bombs into parliament, tracking down magicians in alleyways and assaulting them, releasing a demon armed with a weapon of mass destruction into Greater London? Tell me, what is that if not terrorism? Don't just stand there and pretend like you're some saint.

But you know what? I'm happy you're alive. We have too much unfinished business.

[Kate delivers Mandrake a withering stare. Nothing he said makes her terribly fond of his existence; in fact, it's just the opposite. Her lips twist downward. While she is lacking a great deal of information, he is rather quick to declare that he's worthy of subjugating anyone. She doesn't like Norman Osborn, but she doesn't want to chain him up and force him to do her bidding. That's inhumane. And her best guess is that these demons are very far removed from service animals. Given Kitty's description, it makes it clear.]

Kitty's treatment of me and Billy has to do with us, and that's why we want to talk. You do owe us a conversation, and we're only giving you the treatment you gave us ... and just about everyone other imPort. You weren't thinking, but you dragged every imPort into your circumstances against Mandrake here. Your anger may be justified against him, but not us. You forced our hands.

[And she's continuing to force them. Kate isn't pleased that her request for just a conversation has been rejected because of what seems to be nothing more than Kitty's pride. Because while Mandrake's colors are very, very apparent, Kate doesn't think the treatment toward her, Billy, and others has been in any way fair. That she attacked Billy because of the blinders permanently affixed to her face is worrying for Kate.]

We're not here to fight, and we wanted to make this happen with the least amount of melodrama involved. So, Loki, take Mandrake away. Billy and I will handle Kitty here. Hopefully without him standing there, things will calm down.

[The fact that she has to be so imperious worries her, but she is frustrated. Underneath all of this is a cold anger. This situation is not one of her favorites.]

And Mr. Mandrake, do not suggest that anyone deserves to be subjugated again. Or it won't be just Kitty that you'll be facing.

Edited 2014-12-15 02:16 (UTC)

Unfinished business like torturing me for... [ She starts to spit that, but Loki is already leading Mandrake away. Kitty looks for a moment nonplussed; her hand with her knife drops to her side, and she blinks, disoriented. She was getting really into the argument, and so feebly she tries to continue: ] But I'm never going to...Hey, hold on -

[ And she flounders a moment, blinking at Mandrake's retreating back. It's - she - had - things to say! Things that would make Mandrake feel bad. He was going to be miserable. That's...

She blinks back at Kate. Right. Okay. They still have her cornered; the situation isn't resolved. But it does seem a lot less hateful and dire now. Her intensity is taken back several notches when she points after him. ]

I'm not done speaking with him.

[ But she knows that's not going to get her anywhere. So she tries to turn her attention to what Billy and Kate had said. ]

Look, I don't know what you're talking about with my treatment of you.

[Billy looks supremely annoyed at all of this. He just looks at Kitty, and then back to where Mandrake is being led away.]

You can't just manipulate people like that! That's what we mean!

[He isn't really yelling, though, it's just very emphatic speaking.]

What do you think it's called when you manipulate two people, lie to them, and then attack one of them because he's a magic user? Which, come on, you're sharp. You have to know it works differently here.

[Though Kate doesn't sound like she's utterly convinced that Kitty is capable of that.

No, right now, Kate feels like she's witnessing Darkside Harry Potter come to life, with demons replacing house elves. Kate is not a nerd like Billy or Teddy, but when it comes to Harry Potter, she knows her shit. And this is like the nightmarish version of that story come to life right before her, complete with being unable to divorce themselves from their vision of the world. That was a prevalent sticking point in Rowling's works.

It makes her feel a little out of place with explaining this. After all, Kate knows supervillains, she knows bad guys who take over the world (see: the above-mentioned Norman Osborn), but she's used to the weird. She doesn't feel ostracized by it, because it's a way of life.

That it's seen as a source of so much evil for Kitty is concerning.]

But I don't think you do, so that's why I want to talk. I don't want you walking away with some apology like it's nothing. Otherwise, I worry about what's going to happen in the future. Tell that jerk Mandrake all you want, but you can't run around treating this world like a rebellion. Trust me—no, trust us, because we've definitely been involved in one ourselves, and that doesn't ... fly here. [It's a lesson she learned. She learned it early on, and it's one that has to stick here.

Otherwise, she's not just worried about what Kitty will do. She's worried about what will happen to Kitty.

Kate isn't even touching the fact that she might decide to pull off some of the acts that Mandrake mentioned.]

[ For a moment, Kitty lets herself be angry. That's it? That's all? They just wanted to talk about the stupid, petty argument she'd had with Billy on the network? That's what they decided to blow her cover for? Never mind that the fate of her people, of all of London, might well depend on her. Never mind that she was keeping her identity secret because she'd be killed or worse if she was found out. Oh, no, they had to trick her, hunt her down, corner her in person. Chase her down when she tried to flee. They had to let her enemy know her identity when she'd been safe, all because they'd wanted to chat about something so inconsequential that she can hardly even remember it.

She thinks all of that for a moment. And then the stupid, irritating voice of reason that consistently plagues her points out: Kitty, they had no idea what they were doing. You were acting shifty, so they were justified in being curious - you'd have done the same thing. And they didn't even know you had a cover to blow. You haven't got the slightest right to feel put-upon and outraged when you haven't been wronged. Which in a way makes it all worse: if she's lost her opportunity to help back home, and she doesn't even have anyone to be furious at over that, she'll actually go mad. She'll actually tear all her hair out and become a madwoman wandering the streets. ]

I'm not. Treating it like a rebellion.

[ She says that with a sigh, and starts to cross her arms - and then remembers the knife in her hand, and makes a face. She'd like to put it down, but she doesn't trust them enough for that. Not yet. So she lets her arms just fall awkwardly back down to her sides. ]

Believe me, I have things I want accomplished. I'm not going to sit around in this world, playing around with games on my phone and talking endlessly about the Russian threat. I won't pretend I don't have an agenda in what I do. But I'm not going to hurt anyone here, or abuse them, or upset them, to achieve that agenda. I might have, once. [ She gives a little grimace; she doesn't like confirming anything Mandrake said as truth, but, well... ] But I was different then.

[ She says this directly to Billy. ] I lied to you, yes, but only to hide my identity. I went to you to get my questions answered - [ That's to Kate - ] Because I couldn't wait any longer. Every day that passes is another day that I might get Ported home without accomplishing what I need to, and I can't have that happen. There are too many lives at stake. And then I came back to you - [ Billy again - ] Because I didn't get anything useful from her answer, and I thought there might be more I was missing.

[ She's gotten awfully chatty, which is annoying, because not five minutes before she was giving the I'll never talk spiel. But, well...

Honestly, Kate had sort of believed her when she'd said all that about her world. About Mandrake. That...It means really a lot to her, to be believed. That makes her relax enough to talk. ]

That's it. That's all that I'm going to explain or apologize for. Aside from to say that I was an arse to you, yes - [ That's to Billy; this is said with her hands on her hips, and her chin raised, and her voice incredibly bossy. ] But you were just as much of an arse back to me. So don't give me crap about me attacking you, because you were a complete wanker right back to me. And you threatened me with magic to get me to shut up, which you might well have been saying facetiously but which is still the threat of someone powerful against someone powerless, which is completely awful and which I will not stand for. So, yes, I was nasty, and I'm sorry for that, but I wasn't exactly attacking an unarmed person there.

[ Right - ]

Okay, now that's really all that I'm going to explain.

[Billy listens to all of this, doesn't say anything about her calling him names, and in his head he is categorizing her already, maybe a little unfairly: self-righteous, morally superior, utterly blind, and in a way that helps a little because dealing with someone who comes for the Scott Summers school of agenda-chasing isn't unfamiliar to Billy. Frustrating and irritating, incomprehensible, but not unfamiliar.]

First off, you're not powerless. Not one here is, literally and metaphorically, I guess, but man if you going off the rails was all about me saying I would turn you into a frog, I'm sorry, and just know I have never and would never actually turn anyone into a frog.

[That might sound more sincere if Billy didn't sound so utterly annoyed, but c'est la vie.]

This could have all been avoided if you had just told me you talked to Kate, and then I would have said she knew everything I did and we could have both gone on with our lives. You won't stand for me talking about...attacking the powerless, which is ridiculous because I wouldn't ever do it, but I will absolutely not stand for being lied to or manipulated, so cut it out. Or used.

[He looks over at Kate, then, as if to make sure she's on board, but he's not quite finished.]

This isn't your world. We're from all over. Stop assuming you know stuff about me because I use magic.

And you are treating it like a rebellion. You might not realize it, but your way of getting information is shady, because you think it needs to be shady. You think it's necessary. It's not. That isn't going to help anyone, and I voluntarily gave you that information—which was more than Billy had to offer, for the record—because I don't see any point in keeping it secretive. I only left things out of my F. A. Q. because some people don't want all the details.

[If anything was made clear from the elections and the fact that imPorts may "lose rights" that they never had in the first place, it was that some people couldn't be bothered with all of the politics, the mythology, and the terrorism. They might be disgusted by it, but that's something entirely different. Many of them just wanted to live their lives.

But that just made the work of those who were trying to figure things out and change things all the more important. Loki, Kate, Annie, and others were doing their best. But all of them learned independently that they couldn't do this alone. They had to open their mouths.]

You're not going to accomplish anything alone. None of us will, and many of us have already learned that lesson the hard way. [She lets that hang in the air for a moment.] So, it'd probably be better if you stopped with ... [She motions vaguely.] What approach you did decide to take. You weren't that good at keeping it up, anyway.

[Besides, they could use someone with her passion.]

Oh, and Billy doesn't turn people into frogs. It was a joke. I know it's hard to identify when you're used to it being used as a threat, but that just proves how much you have to learn about this world. No matter what your goals are, that's the first step you're gonna have to take. [And Kate thinks to Skye, who she might call on to help Kitty.]

I'm already learning.

[ Kitty says that with a frown. If she takes pride in anything, it's her ability to learn and to adapt. She's certainly not angry about that comment, and there's nothing in her manner that suggests that she's particularly offended; there's just a fierce sort of assertion in that one fact. That she's learning. ]

Everything I can, I'm learning. And I'm going to take it all back with me. [ To Billy - ] Which is why I asked about the Porter - and I wasn't hiding that I'd spoken to Kate, by the way, I just didn't mention it, so that's not shadiness, that's just...Well, I thought it was conversational efficiency, but I suppose you think it's rudeness or shiftiness or something. [ But she's being defensive, and that's pointless and will just lead to arguments again, so she waves her hand and shakes her head, a clear indication of forget it. And she takes a breath, trying to get her thoughts a little bit more in order, trying to speak rationally and reasonably. ]

Look. If I was shady, it was because I did have to be. I'm trying to get us home with our memories intact, because...that's necessary for things to change back home for me. So I couldn't have Mandrake knowing about me, because if he did, he'd make sure the death sentence that didn't get carried out three years ago happened soon as we were back. [ She gives a shrug that she tries to make look casual. ] But all that effort's worthless now, so I guess you can look forward to a bit less secrecy, yeah.

Edited 2014-12-16 00:03 (UTC)

[None of the tension in Billy's body unwinds itself, but his face eases a bit, and when he speaks again, it's definitely not as annoyed. He's really not here to fight. He's just here to clear this up.]

Yeah, we get it's important to you. Obviously there are things we don't understand. I just-

[He makes a noise, slightly frustrated, but not at Kitty, really, more at himself.]

I wasn't making you wait to prove a point. I was making you wait because I had things I had to work out. Things important to me and my world. Just-

I'm not going to get where you're coming from if you don't tell me, okay?

[Okay. Okay, this can work, right?]

Besides, that's a really useless effort if you don't work with people.

[For Kate's part, the agitation is clear. She knows that if something like that were possible, it would be done already. A number of people wouldn't want to forget entire lives that they lived. That Kitty thinks that she can manage it, even with the limited amount of information she has, is extremely usual.]

And if you'd been talking to people, you could've learned that sometimes ... the dead does get brought back here. You could've told John that this world made you alive again, and you don't know how. And any catches to that could've been worked around.

[It's not a strong point, but she hopes it's an obvious enough one for Kitty to follow: she's only shooting herself in the foot with the way she's doing things. And that action is what's coming back to bite her in the ass.]

Either way, it's hard to accomplish anything alone. You won't accomplish that alone. For one, you can't rely on Skye changing your name all the time to get us all back home with our memories intact. I think you have quite the mountain to climb there. [While Skye hadn't confirmed it directly, it was pretty obvious. If Mandrake, a man of some power, had been lost when it came to technology here, then it would be much the same for anyone else.]

She didn't tell you -

[ Kitty's eyes go just a little wide, and the look that crosses her face for just a moment is one of real hurt. Confirmation enough that she's been relying on Skye after all - and that from Kitty's perspective, it's certainly more than just an arrangement of convenience, but instead something like a real friendship. But she gets control of herself a moment later, and shakes her head - though there's still an upset tilt to her lips, and her eyebrows are knitted in unhappiness.

She takes a breath, then says to Billy - and her tone, now, is more modulated, more respectful as well - ]

I'll tell you where I'm coming from. In full. In my home, things are bad and getting worse. The rebellion and the magicians are egging each other on, and it'll keep getting more violent, more horrible. The only way it can be stopped is if something happens to stop it - and me, being here - I have some way to make something happen. But if I get Ported out before that happens, it'll all just... [ She shakes her head. ] That's why I've got to push, and keep pushing, until I get there and accomplish my goal. Because otherwise, they'll kill us and we'll kill them, and the whole cycle of hatred and violence will just continue on.

[ She hesitates, then says: ]

And I don't know who I can trust with this. You say I can't accomplish anything alone, but...I don't know who I can trust to help me, and not to take advantage of all this.

[ Especially since it sounds like Skye - who she trusted completely - spoke about her. ]

Well, I think you can trust Kate.

[He says it with honesty, and a definite level of pride.]

As long as you aren't messing with her or her team, you can trust Kate with anything.

If Skye gave me anything, we wouldn't have had to trick you. [It feels like an important thing to add after the hurt crosses Kitty's features.] She said you were a good, if impulsive, person, and didn't want to be involved with this. [And in a way, Kate regrets not trusting her judgment, but right now, she knows that she's not trusting Skye's judgment for other reasons. She can't beat herself up too much over it.

Right now, anyway. Later, though. Later she will, when she's not in the presence of her best friend and Kitty Jones.]

As it is, you can trust me. And I can do what I can to help you. But right now, you have to see that your mission is also individually focused. And sometimes, you have to count on people you don't think you can trust to broaden your opportunities. [It's a nasty truth, but "I want to go home with my memories" doesn't seem like a bad path to take.]

[ There's no hiding the relief that crosses Kitty's face when Kate assures her of Skye's honesty. (Though she does try; immediately after that revelation, Kitty reaches up to fiddle with the cap over her bobbed hair, trying to pull it down to shade her face a little better. She doesn't like it when her heart is so obviously, openly on her sleeve.) ]

You tricked me, cornered me, and exposed me to my enemy.

[ She looks up at Kate when she says that. She wishes she were able to say that haughtily, or angrily, or something, but instead her voice is just a little bit quiet and sad. And her face isn't angry, now; it's just confused, and a little anxious. She's not saying this to throw it in Kate's face, but instead just out of genuine indecision. ]

I don't know if I can trust you. Not yet.

[ But it's clear enough that she wants to, because a moment later, she says: ]

I'm sorry. I - need to think about it.

[Billy is about to say you didn't really give us any choice and it's not like we knew Mandrake was your mortal enemy but really, he's not going to force this issue. Nope. He is going to just internalize it and remember it.

For you know.

Later.]

Hey, it's up to you.

I think we'll go around in circles if we drag this out anymore. Kate?

You tricked us, manipulated us, and we accidentally exposed you to your enemy. Please stop making it into what it wasn't. As far as we knew, you were a threat. [After all, no one uses and manipulates people without good reason. And Billy did loudly announce his status of power to everyone.

And though Kate would have recommended that he didn't do that last bit, she's used to Billy's show of theatrics. (Even if they were confusing at first.]

But you can think about it. Billy's right, you're obviously planning on sending us in circles until you think about it first.

[ Kitty at least smiles, and the smile is at least apologetic. It's a quiet little you've got me pegged quirk of the lips, and she says: ]

Yeah. Sorry. I really haven't got anything else to give you until I do.

[ And I need to take a moment to go feel sick in a corner for an hour or so is something she is not, under any circumstances, going to add. Because a girl's got to keep a little of her pride. ]

Anyway. It was nice meeting the two of you in person.

[Billy raises a hand.]

Sure. Pleasure's ours, all that.

[He extends his other hand to Kate]

Ready to go?

[Because hell yes they are making an exit.]

Yeah, it was nice.

[If far more tension-filled than either of them bargained for. Kate reaches out to take Billy's hand.]

Let's go.

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