RP post, family, wintergreen storyline

[sylph_fics]

There had surely been moments that he had been in a more uncomfortable position than currently being unable to trust either of the people he loved most (for justified suspicions on both sides), but, sitting on his couch with tension through the entire East Side penthouse, he couldn't think of a single one.

Wintergreen in the bedroom that had always been his, likely still on the phone, Adeline braced in the space between the bedroom and where he sat, Joseph hovering worriedly in the echoing space between the three of them... quite the situation for the little Martian telepath to come into.

Especially because his composure was barely a pasted-over thing on actual his mental state.

But they needed the girl's un-biased ability to test minds, to be sure that neither of them held a poisoned kiss without knowing it.

Comments

[lady-kane.livejournal.com]

"If you would be so kind." For this, I will need to sit. Moving to the center of the room, away from anything I could use as a weapon save myself, and sinking to the floor, tucking my feet under me, to sit quietly. Harder to attack from this position.

I do not know what she will find in me, and I would rather make it more difficult to attack anyone in the room than easier.

[tm-wintergreen.livejournal.com]

Wintergreen managed to hide the pain and flinch when the woman did not refute the last name that the girl had used. He did remove his own weapons...the Browning and the snubnose pistol at his ankle. These he placed carefully on the table, before sitting on the floor...so much easier now.

[lady-kane.livejournal.com]

Flicker of triumph at the reaction Wintergreen had not managed to hide well enough, though I attempt to ignore it. Permitting the girl to call me by the name I have refuted so often... it was petty, but I had not found it in me to correct her. Not right now.

That, too, will come later, if the man beside me on the floor is who he appears to me.

[masked-merc.livejournal.com]

//She didn't...// Slade's breath caught for a long moment when Addie didn't deny the name she'd thrown in his face, or that she was his--//you know she's not any more. [when have I ever admitted that in truth?]//

Watching not one, but both of them, take that kind of position, both of them willing to make themselves quite that vulnerable to Miss Martian's telepathic scan, and to the room at large...

He looked down at his hands, rather than think about it, then looked up at the girl to watch her instead.

[silent_jericho.livejournal.com]

Miss Martian stepped forward, centering herself with a deep breath, before sending tendrils of thought into both the humans' minds. The sense of underlying conflict between them pained the Martian who had denied her warlike nature. Instead of taking them one at a time, she flowed through both minds, 'accidently' leaving conduits open to allay the mistrust on both sides, so that each one could see that the other was truly who they said, and safe from tampering.

That it showed both a little too much of the depths in their emotions...that would not hurt them either, Miss Martian was willing to bet.

[lady-kane.livejournal.com]

Wintergreen.

The knowledge blazes through me: Wintergreen, alive and well, moreso than he has been in decades, no more of a threat to Slade than he has ever been.

Threat to *me*, his love for Slade now something I know as well as my own, and the look on his face tells me that he is seeing far more of my own heart than I had ever wished him to.

Humiliation lashing through me, anger, more fear than I wish to acknowledge, and I am off the floor faster than I have ever moved in my life. "You have your answer."

[tm-wintergreen.livejournal.com]

Wintergreen moved, nearly as fast, to rise, the fury rising in him so quickly that it forces Miss Martian to cut away the ties to herself, and between them. The fury, however, is reserved for the child.

"You dare violate her privacy so much? As well as my own?" he demanded. "All we sought were answers to our minds potentially having traps!"

[silent_jericho.livejournal.com]

Joe has rarely seen such temper, and the way Miss Martian cringes, he has to step forward.

"No, Jericho...he is right to be angry. I made an error in searching, and it has made things worse, even as I can tell you all, freely, that no one in this room harbors any hidden agenda planted by another," Miss Martian said.

[lady-kane.livejournal.com]

I am angry enough that I am shaking with it, but Wintergreen's fury lets me breathe for a moment. I am not truly angry with him. It is an excuse, nothing more, for the anger I do not wish to acknowledge. "That was poorly done, girl." Ice in my tone, and I do not make an effort to tone down the fact that I must surely be broadcasting rage, doubtless painfully to her.

[silent_jericho.livejournal.com]

"My apologies, Mrs. Wilson," Miss Martian said contritely. "Jericho, I will leave now."

[Thank you.] Joey walked her to the door, still prickling at the situation.

[lady-kane.livejournal.com]

The girl had given the answers we needed. It is ill-mannered to not, at least, thank her myself.

But she is an easier and more justifiable target than anyone else I have at my disposal.

Tilt of my head towards Wintergreen, still stinging with the rough humiliation of having my thoughts so known. "... Thank you. You are content with your answer?"

[tm-wintergreen.livejournal.com]

As Joe was escorting the girl out, Wintergreen was forced to savor that contact with Addie's unguarded mind. It...she honestly would relinquish Slade to him, but the fact she had grown to love Slade again (or refind the buried/guarded emotions) would make that such a bitter pain to her.

It left the former soldier at odds with his own desires in regard to the man he'd watched develop in life's fullness.

"Content, that you are neither a threat to Slade, nor to his family, yes." His brown eyes were shadowed by so much awareness of how this situation set ill on both of them, and on Slade.

[masked-merc.livejournal.com]

Slade had to struggle to be still against the scent of hot-blooded rage that poured from both of them as his wife and his partner came to their feet that fast, the fury in both of their voices, the fear layered under Addie's and the full roar of Wintergreen's anger--

The girl did not quail, and that surprised him somewhat as she answered--but then, she was telepath, not empath, and somewhat shielded from the emotional storms that would have struck Raven so badly.

He wondered what the girl had done, even as he heard her words with a surge of relief. //They are... they are themselves. Thank God.//

And where was the foxhole, that he was even thinking at that deity?