nearly like spring before your trap;

[enigmaestro]

WHO: Verity and Eddie.
WHERE: Solve, the subdued De Chima bar.
WHEN: March 9th, evening.
WHAT: Two truths and a rye.
WARNINGS: None foreseeable.


He had given her the coordinates, and the time, all wrapped within a brief text. This was a promise he was intent on fulfilling -- though it ought to be noted that he was not in the habit on going back on his word, truly. When faced with skepticism on that front, Edward simply configured (with relative ease) a sideways logic: he never went back on his word, because loopholes went around words. A little tricky play he never found himself above, even while reformed. But this? This wouldn't be an affair tainted with smirks. He didn't know what to think, when Verity had called him last month, when she had confided. She was in some ways unlike his usual company: in contrast to Mitchell, who focused on the greater good at the expense of personal morality (and the quiet minority), or Ramir, whose vibrancy burned brighter when fueled by deception and schemes. Verity embodied this uncompromising integrity that was... Just different. She was different from those other honorable people who now wore rusted smiles because they had been so determined to embrace their more corrosive friends. She was different.

The Gothamite would admit how it was all very intriguing. It was even, perhaps, somewhat puzzling.

Edward sat near the back of the bar, where shadows draped. Smokey and low in lighting, Solve wouldn't pick up a rush until a couple hours later. He refrained from ordering anything to drink until Verity arrived, and simply occupied himself with a crossword in the meanwhile. Half an hour before their scheduled time he arrived, if only to ensure they would have a confidential corner to occupy.

Comments

[verification]

Monday goes down in flames with drama, tears, angry words and new-found grudges. She's been trying so hard to keep the telepathy in, to weaken it and block out the voices, the truths as well as the lies, that Verity is different to how she was when she woke up now that she's spending the evening letting her mind expand on her emotions. The anger, as she told Banner, is a catalyst that enhances whatever psychic or magical ability she possessed before, and she doesn't like the sensation of having been lied to, something never covered up. Methodical and cold, analytic facts rack up and she estimates the percentage of control she governs over the telepathy to rank somewhere around twenty. On a bad day like today, after the argument on the network and subsequent talks, twenty-two.

( 'Of course I want to know.' )

Besides, Stark couldn't help. He all but said as much himself, betting himself into a return of her good graces and a favor if he did. Her options are narrow, they have remained narrow since she arrived and other people started walking through her head with even greater frequency than before, and narrow is what she will work with, whether or not Stark ever cooks up another option that she now isn't sure she cares for. Maybe it's a protective measure, she wonders about that possibility in particular: if she could read minds efficiently, instead of with the halting clumsiness of the moment, who could lie to her ever again?

She wants to be okay, that's all. To maybe read a book on science-fiction (for it to be alright not to read physics and math) and fall asleep on a couch listening to her friend talking.

( 'Trust me. Trust in me.' )

Heels clack as she enters the bar dressed in grays and blacks, fuchsia hair windswept and eyes bright behind rose-colored lenses. The shift from the night-life outside to the dingy recesses of the club has her casting an unfocused glance at the bartender laden with a telepathic question; moments later, after the startled man receives a small apologetic smile from her, she looks directly into the shadows that veil Nygma and paces over.

People are lying quietly at the tables nearby, something about a card game. Good. That keeps her mind active.

"Hi, Edward. Am I late?" Twenty-five to the hour, she hears the owner think, almost not missing a beat as her gaze ticks sideways and back. She exhales, standing beside a chair. "Never mind, I'm not. Thanks for meeting with me."

[enigmaestro]

He spread his hands, showcasing that he hadn't even ordered drinks yet. The crossword was quickly shuffled out of sight -- he didn't want to appear as if it had been waiting -- and he offered a halfway torn smile.

"It never takes me long to do them," he said by way of explanation. A polite explanation if only tainted with ego, perhaps something so embedded in Eddie's tongue that anything less would have strung up a vibe inauthentic. But the words were intended to be soothing, reassuring, and maybe that almost made up for the manner his eyes scoured over her face; he looked for any signs of distress, any strains that might sink her expression. It was an analytical greeting. Eddie never had adopted the politesse for obscuring his own expressions. He preferred his showmanship over the comfort of company, and now it was a habit impossible to expunge.

"I tried to keep us from people," continued Eddie, even as he signaled for a waiter. Perhaps the juxtaposition was paradoxical, but sometimes people did have their inevitable uses. A sidelong glance to the bar bought him only a second -- then he returned his gaze to Verity, and his expression softened under a knit brow. Truth be told, he didn't know what to do for her. Intellectually, he understood that offering empathy (which he was poor at delivering) and listening (that was a little easier) composed an ideal direction, but emotionally he fraught. He was frightened of taking a misstep, and his mind patterned into solving this for her.

The past six years, living away from Gotham, had taught him that treating every incident like a puzzle would earn him scorn. Well -- perhaps that wasn't framed correctly; such was something he new prior to new dimensions, after all. But the past six years had taught him to care about the people he puzzled, at least.

"How do you want to begin this?" Eddie asked in a quiet, crisp voice. He hated admitting (even implicitly) that he didn't know something, and he certainly did not know how to address the horrors that Verity had so recently experienced.

[verification]

The crossword puzzle is a smooth distraction as she sits down, giving a quirk of her lips that could have been a smile of more than acknowledgment on any other night. She hears "I tried to keep us from people" and the echo of he'll hurt you on it, which is what brings Verity to only order a glass of red wine from the waiter and remain mostly erect in her seat, legs folding away from Edward. It's a casual distrust, one she lets him see for all the civilities she otherwise affords. Understandable.

"I want to ask you some questions," she says unhurriedly, albeit without missing a beat as brown eyes flick up to find their foothold in a steady stare. With her voice softening a touch, she adds, "I'd like it if you could be completely honest with me. If you aren't, I'll leave."

As simple as that.

[enigmaestro]

The distrust, casual or otherwise, doesn't burn against him. He takes it with an eased smile -- his tension remained on her problem, her puzzle. His obsession swirled around what and how. After all, emotions were variant variables, sometimes highly important to the equation and sometimes not. Eddie concerned himself with the former only.

Entirely understandable.

"You're posing to me a dilemma."

It was a game, and that relaxed him. Games and tricks he could navigate, as opposed to intricacies of trauma -- leave that to Harley Quinn, if anyone. And if the game seemed vaguely threatening, as Verity's did (after all, why balance higher stakes on the mechanism of his honesty if her questions would not involve him to some degree?) then all the better. Such was Eddie's logic.

"All right," he said. His deliberation took the time necessary to order a gin and tonic. "Why not? But when you're done, then it surely must be my turn."

Questions for questions.

[verification]

She sits there and waits, watching him with a patience born out of emotional exhaustion, every limb as heavy as her heart. When he finishes ordering and agrees, she waits a moment before giving a nod.

"That sounds fair, I suppose," Verity hums. She doesn't have to tell him anything true, after all. Flicking hair over a shoulder, the first reel of the inquisition sinks in its claws.

"Have you ever hurt Loki, do you intend to, and would you use me or my abilities against him?"

Her wine is spicier than anticipated when it arrives, roughly the same shade as her hair in the shadows. Over the rim, Verity arches a brow. Exactly who it is that she hangs out with should be no secret by now and, frankly, after seeing Loki rattled at the idea of someone using her it feels only right to take far more precautions than she did with Stark. Edward is nice, but that doesn't have to mean much of anything in the grand scheme of things. So, she doesn't care if it sounds like Loki had a guard-dog; the questions are as much for her benefit as his, circumstantial. (If she didn't care so much they would be, anyway.)

Something has happened to park her protectiveness, clearly. Lie detectors such as Edward ought to know how it works by now, being cut from the same cloth. There's never usually any need to ask specifics when so many people out themselves.

[enigmaestro]

"Oh -- no. I rather like Loki," he responded easily. "I've met alternative versions of him, you know, this one is... Younger. Quite funny, too." And less feminine, as it were, though that detail had no quantifiable opinion. Those had been highly brief and very odd acquaintances, hardly worth noting at all if it weren't for the value of context. Verity, her figured, would appreciate the context, even if she suspected it to be somewhat of a distraction. He leaned back in his chair, contemplating, his own drink arriving a few moment later. He thought not about the question itself, but rather the circumstance around it.

Eddie had no plan to hurt Loki in any respect, though it was true that if he did, he would want to use Verity. He understood that people like Loki (and Edward himself) rarely valued people, but when they did, it was almost aggressive. Norman had threatened Ramir only recently, as he had detected what she was beginning to mean to Eddie; it only went to reason that Verity was an ideal (if not the ideal) method of tormenting Loki. If Eddie was so inclined.

But the fact that Verity inquired indicated that she needed to clear the air. She needed to mark her territory, she needed to grab Eddie by the throat and seize his truer intention. And why? That suggested that she wanted to trust him -- or, at least, that she wanted to carve out a safe space where she could trust him to some degree. But as much as a safe space with a fellow lie detector would provide, that did not measure up to her valuation of Loki.

Interesting priorities.

"I never had hurt Loki, any Loki, and I presently have no intention to engage in such a behavior."

He spoke clearly, pointedly, covering the bases she asked for. No obvious loopholes, no trickery. He raised his gin and tonic in the motion of a toast.

"Next question."

[verification]

Shoulders lose some of their tension, grateful and relieved in the same moment. Edward is clever, he owns every capacity to be dangerous in ways that unnerve her more, thinking about the possibilities another lie detector could forge, than anything Stark could cook up short of another clone of anyone.

"What do you think of Kate Bishop?"

Kate, highly involved in most (if not all) of the dealings with the Hornets and more besides, is an active presence for all to see. Verity likes her, genuinely, even if she doesn't appreciate the way Kate seems to have adopted herself as the voice of Verity's reason when none has been required for all her twenty-odd years. It's like waking up one day and finding an older sister at the steering wheel, a sensation Verity isn't familiar enough with to know if she can do more than appreciate the sentiment yet.

In tandem with Loki, Kate is important. Specifics can't be rooted out for a myriad of reasons, so Verity deliberately leaves the question vaguer than it could be. Interpretation is key where it never really is with a certain God of Mischief.