I will not set myself on fire to keep you warm

Lucille smiled, a hint of steel reflected in the shiny bright white of her teeth, and pulled out her phone, opening a list of places she could use. There was one nearby – a small deli she knew and enjoyed – and she turned her phone around to show Ashford. “Is this an acceptable alternative?”

A sweep of Ashford’s online presence and a look at the woman herself told Lucille that she was fresh out of college – less than five years out, certainly. Her clothes suggested that she wasn’t well off (non-designer, and with signs of use scattered here and there). The younger woman’s shoes were scuffed and dirty in places, like she was used to walking the streets, and the purse Ashford carried was more functional than fashionable, and had the wear on the leather and cloth to prove it. Bags under the eyes showed a lack of sleep (stress?), and when she’d first published her article against AIM, Lucille had noted a tendency to post at all times of night, even when most others would be sleeping. Nothing in her official Daily Bugle bio had indicated that she worked a night shift, which either meant party girl or insomniac. 

Guessing by how Ashford had pressed the button of the Taser,  Lucille would put money on insomniac.

The City was stressful. God knew that Lucy knew it, even before she’d taken her current position, but the media companies were screaming about how hard it was for them to keep their profit margins up. Lucille had met J. Jonah Jameson several times at society events; while he seemed like a skinflint, Lucille knew he had a soft spot for his reporters, even if he couldn’t pay them extremely well. If Ashford could be convinced to leave the City, that would be a problem solved in an entirely above-the-board way.

There were openings elsewhere. One of her board members owned significant stock in a large media company that had papers in a dozen cities. But Ashford had to want it.

Sam followed Lucille, her enemy ten minutes ago, her sort-of-source now, and waited until they were settled in the shop, Sam’s eyes darting around to the other patrons, analyzing quickly their threat levels, before she pulled our her recorder, pen, and paper, and got to focusing. “Yeah,” she said through a snort. “I’m from the city. Grew up just outside Manhattan. Didn’t like it then. Still don’t like it now.” She could have elaborated, said she couldn’t keep the rent up on her apartment, say she hadn’t afforded groceries in two weeks now, was eating McDonalds for nearly every meal, could say New York had chewed her up and spit her out, but Lucille Brass did not, in Sam’s book, deserve elaboration. 

She tucked her hair behind her ears, held her chin up, tried, at least for a moment, to look like the respectable girl she had been raised to be. She cleared her throat, and they got to work. It was oddly satisfying, even with the anger still in the back of her mind, to have Brass in front of her, to actually hear words coming out of the woman’s mouth that weren’t performed for a press conference. Sam couldn’t say it was everything she had waited for, but she could say it was weight off her shoulders, could say that for the first time in months, she felt like she could breathe, not because she had answers, but because she’d accomplished just one thing on her shit list when it seemed like she’d never accomplish anything. 

Tony never should have agreed to this; or at least, he should have come alone, gotten a read on the situation before he’d ever let Regan or her friend onto the premises. This was reckless, impulsive. Sure, she never would have agreed to it otherwise, but he could have found a way, could have insisted, could have tried. He should have known better.

Tony pushed the Iron Man jets onward with all he had–and as it was the best armor he’d made so far, and pretty great if he did say so himself, all he had was better than most. But it still wasn’t enough. It still didn’t matter. By the time he’d slid into the room, jets scraping across the cement floors as he skidded to a stop, gauntlets raised and at the ready, the man was already beaten him to the punch, gun raised toward the women.

That left Lucille at something of an awkward point. This wasn’t a change in their relationship. She still wasn’t going to answer Ashford’s questions in anything less than a tightly controlled interview, and she’d likely go to a much less hostile journalist first if she wanted something to be disseminated by the press. Still, it was a shared experience between the two women, a point where they can done something together that had involved an emotionally charged encounter, and Lucille knew she could find a way to use it if she just tried.

Ashford would never be her friend, but perhaps she could be useful.

“I doubt we have time for that,” she stated, winding the electrodes back into her taser, “but who knows? Stranger things have happened.” She put the taser back into her bag, and then brushed herself off, warding off any damage or stains that might have spontaneously appeared on her clothing in the fray. Lucille reached into her bag, and found a wallet with business cards in them.

Barely holding back a gulp of pure nervousness--she could not show weakness, not here, not now--Sam tucked the card into her pocket and nodded once, slowly. “I have nowhere I have to be,” she said. Truth be told, she could have had the president waiting, and she’d likely have put it off to make this interview happen. Sam might not like Brass, but even she could admit: Lucille Brass was the most important person in her life. Some might say obsessed. Enemies sure did cure loneliness. 

What Sam hoped to accomplish from this, she couldn’t have pinpointed even for herself. She wanted to know what had happened to her source, wanted to know why AIM had taken the measures they had--was a life really worth their secret? She wanted justice not only for her mutant and infected friends, but for all who had been hurt by this, all who had been lied to, let to paranoia, led to turn on each other when the enemy was in front of them the whole time. Sam wanted justice, but she didn’t even care about the difference between good or bad, wasn’t even sure where she stood or if she’d already crossed the line. She wanted something maybe she could never have. But this card, this interview, it was a start of something--maybe an end she couldn’t even foresee.

Even that hadn’t been the worst of it. She read over all the things they had done, all that she had experienced but couldn’t remember for the life of her how some of it felt. What truly stung had been the fact that in bright red letters, right above all of her information and a picture of her sedated was EFFECTIVE. At the bottom of the page laid a stamp stating SUCCESSFUL, seeing this only made her veins grow more cold. 

Sam’s words didn’t register and neither did Tony’s warning over comms. Nothing could distract her from the fact that once again, she was a weapon. If not by her father or for the Brotherhood than by AIM or HYDRA, or whatever the hell they were called now. She’d never lose the label of being just another tool to be picked up and used when the situation called for it. She would never be strong enough to lose that. Her weakness now cruelly laid crystal clear to her just from this file. How could she simply moved passed that? All this time of now being able to recall everything that had been done to her while in the Clinic, now here it was. 

Tears streamed down her face, showing her facade of strength now cracking. She angrily wiped them away, finally realizing she had to regain what was left of her makeshift composure. She quickly eyed Sam, feeling embarrassed for losing herself so easily, even if it were momentarily. 

What had they done to her in here to make a woman that strong break now? Was what was on that paper really so life changing; how had they phrased it, what pictures had they shown, what atrocities had they gotten away with? “They’re all going to burn,” Sam said when she should have said “it’s okay” and “we’re going to get through this” or perhaps, “you’re going to be alright.” Her voice was bitter, biting, like venom on her tongue. “They’re going to burn for what they did to you,” she said. She reached for the rest of the files, for any papers she could find, any scrap. She shoved them all into her bag without looking--that she could do later. Now, they had to get out. “For everything they did to you, for everything they did to this world, they’re going to suffer, and I’m going to watch laughing.” 

It was something Sadie had always excelled at; rebelling in little ways, just enough to get a reaction but not enough to warrant anything extreme. She’d never gotten herself into a mess she couldn’t charm her way out of – not until joining HYDRA, at least.

“I should get this back,” she said, holding up the moneybag. “See you soon.”

She headed for the bar, dodging citygoers as she went. Tina must’ve seen her coming, because she exploded out of the building, her mascara running in streaks down her face.

“You found it, ohmyGod, are you OK?” she babbled, latching onto Jess’s arm.

“I’m fine,” Jess soothed. “Have the armored truck guys left yet? They still need this. Look,” she added, lowering her voice and glancing for the door. “I have to go meet someone. Take this in and tell Tino I’ll be back later.”

Tina nodded, accepting the moneybag with a watery smile.

“Thanks Jess. I owe you one.”

“Buy me a pizza and we’ll call it even,” Jess said with a wink before ducking back into the crowd. Tino was used to her strange behavior, but she didn’t want to explain just how she’d caught the guy to the armored truck drivers.

Soon she was pushing open the door to the coffee place, listening to the jaunty tinkle of the bell above it. The reporter was already seated in a booth, and Jess plopped down across from her.

When she noticed her story walking in, Sam gestured at Esther to go ahead and make the order she’d put on a “tentative schedule” then sat up straight in the way her mother had always taught her “conveyed respect and interest”--it was perhaps the only lesson she’d ever taken from her mother. 

“You came,” she said, her expression even, but Sam had been surprised before. “I have to say, I expected you to have a robotic rabid dog to chase through the city at exactly this moment. That’s the story I usually get.” She thanked Esther for the drink when it came and then pushed it across the table. “That’s the best they serve here,” she said, pointing to it. “Sweet, but not too sweet. Enough energy to get you through the day. And it’s got a secret ingredient, I’m sure, but I haven’t gotten it out of Esther. She assures me she doesn’t use addictive drugs in her drinks, but take that at your own discretion,” she joked. She was 100% certain that there was not a single dangerous ingredient in all of Esther’s drinks--the woman was far too kind for that--but how it always tasted so good would continue to be the mystery of the century.