Job Interview (for Scott Summers and Emma Frost)

[a_sloane]

It was an odd thing to reflect on: the last time he had applied for any kind of position had been decades ago. Not counting all the counterfeits, of course, but all serious positions had been offered to him since then, and of course his profession had, in essence, remained the same.

(In the field, he had posed as a teacher, in Columbia. It had been an interesting and rewarding assignment, though for reasons that had nothing to do with teaching and everything with the first Rambaldi manuscript he aquired on the occasion.)

Maybe this was an assignment, too. He still had that hole in his memory, though so far he had known better than to go against his own instructions. Remember Julia. He did. He did far too well not to listen. But based on what he knew, he had no other reasons to apply for a teaching position at Xavier's than intellectual curiosity and the need of a challenge. Sloane could not abide stagnation. Besides, if the past in whichever form did catch up with him, it could be more than useful to be among people who had various interesting and lethal superpowers at their disposal. Granted, he'd have to win their loyalty first, but then again, that, too, was part of the challenge.

Finding an acceptable restaurant in the Westchester County wasn't difficult. His own inclination was to look for an Italian one, so he went for French in order not to be predictable. It reminded him of Zurich, and Judy. Well. One could hope that this particular dinner would have simarly rewarding results. At the very least, he would meet two of the more intriguing people he had corresponded with; one of them with clear mentor issues, and the other well versed in sarcasm and the guilt of survival.

Weren't all new beginnings filled with nostalgia?

Comments

[a-sloane.livejournal.com]

The last time Sloane had seen Emma Frost had been at a charity event, at a distance, but that combination of striking looks and elegance would have been unmistakable even if he hadn't researched her since they got in contact. Scott Summers he only knew from photographs and the newsclips around the time Charles Xavier had told the world about his school, but visual recognition was easy, in his case. There was something unexpectedly familiar in the body language, though. A man with very controlled movements, lips pressed together, taking in the place like a tactician, one step behind the beautiful woman whom one underestimated at one's peril: impossible not to think of Jack and Irina.

Sloane rose and took Emma's hand, returning her smile. If she scanned him, she might have caught something of the complicated tangle of emotions that were tied to Jack Bristow and Irina Derevko before he pushed the thought away, but his demeanour showed nothing but interest and delight at the arrival of two potential employers.

"She walks in beauty," he replies, borrowing Byron. "It's a privilege, Emma."

A handshake, as opposed to kissing her hand; this is a business meeting, more than a social encounter, and a mutual test of sorts. He lets her hand go and turns towards her companion.

"You're a lucky man, Mr. Summers."

Arvin Sloane is old fashioned enough not to use people's first names without invitation, unless he wants to imply a certain hierarchy with himself as the higher ranking party, or is adopting another persona.

[cyke-out.livejournal.com]

"Scott. Please." He amends, giving Sloane his hand. With a glance at Emma, he says. "And I know I'm lucky. She reminds me all the time."

He smiles at Emma, as he pulls out her chair, and he makes a point of casually touching her shoulder as she sits. Despite Emma's protestations, he isn't entirely sure that Sloane doesn't have the wrong idea about her, and at the same time he knows that it's dumb macho posturing, he can't entirely help giving off these small signs of -- well, Emma would kick him for thinking it, but for lack of a better word -- ownership.

It isn't that he doesn't trust Sloane, in particular. He's just not especially good at trusting anyone.

[ice-emma.livejournal.com]

Emma smiles at Sloane. "Such flattery. If you're not careful, we'll rope you into teaching poetry." She sits down, mostly amused by his proprietary touch on her shoulder, and looks up at him with a small smile.

As he sits beside her, Emma turns her gaze back to Arvin Sloane. She's reading him, of course, and she sees enough to know he is serious about a position at Xavier's. There is something else beneath his polished exterior that gives her a brief pause; something he is trying very hard to keep in check. Emma can appreciate that. She simply wants to ascertain that he is not a threat to her students or her teammates. Emma can appreciate a little bit of darkness of the soul.

"So, do tell me what you've been up to since last we saw each other. Anything exciting?" She sips at her glass of water.

[a-sloane.livejournal.com]

„I might surprise you by volunteering,“ Sloane says, amused by Scott Summer’s gesture as well. In a way, it’s flattering. He doesn’t suffer from false modesty, but he’s quite aware that middle-aged, thin and grizzled former spies are one one’s idea of romantic competition.

Then Emma asks her question, and it’s time for the next move. Arvin Sloane starts by the casual and true (leaving out a few minor details, including going through a fake execution): “Oh, I went back to work for the government for a while.”

They’d know as much both from his application and Ms. Pryde’s research. Then he proceeds to tell her something which he hadn’t mentioned before, in either application or correspondance. He hardly ever allows himself to think about it; it’s something that can overwhelm him, if he lets it. But Sloane has learned to lie with the truth at a young age. He’s not exactly planning on lying to Emma right now, but he doesn’t want her, or anyone else, including himself, to investigate those holes in his memory covering almost a year. The way to do that, he decided in advance, the way to distract a telepath was by laying himself bare in another regard, risking one vulnerability to cover another. Because he knows if he really opens himself to one particular event, he won’t, at that point, be able to feel anything else.

“I also found a daughter I never knew I had, and I – “

lost her again, he had wanted to conclude, but suddenly he despises the euphemism. “She is dead,” Sloane says abruptly. There it is, the last image before the blackness, the roof, Nadia and Sydney struggling, Nadia and her crazed, tormented eyes, about to kill her sister, no choice, no choice, the gun at his hand, the shot, and Sydney staring at him in disbelief while Nadia’s body crumbles to the floor.

Not a month before that, Nadia had brought him back from the closest thing he had ever known to death.

I believe in you, Dad.

“You can’t go back to your old life,” Sloane says, looking directly in Emma’s eyes, his voice barely more than a whisper, “once you have held the dead body of your child.”

At this opportune moment, the waiter shows up, ready to take their orders.

[cyke-out.livejournal.com]

As far as Scott is concerned, Sloane and Emma can fight over the poetry class, as long as he doesn't have to teach it.

As he listens to Sloane's story, he feels a little chill around his heart -- how many times has he found his children and lost them again? Granted that Nathan and Rachel are alive and now -- and, more or less, he thinks well -- yet too many things have happened to Scott's family for him to believe that the cycle is ever settled. Then, as Sloane talks about holding his daughter's body, Scott's mind goes somewhere else -- Manhattan, and Jean, her body convulsing as the life left her.

Dammit. This might be a blatant play for sympathy on Sloane's part -- Scott knows that -- but it's certainly working on him. Emma, Emma can be more objective about it.

Is he telling the truth? Scott asks her, mentally.

[ice-emma.livejournal.com]

Emma is sitting very still. She does not know what to say, to Sloane.

Yes, she sends to Scott.

"Thank you," Emma says carefully, her gaze shrewd. "For sharing that with us. We are no stranger to loss in our home, Arvin. There's a graveyard with too many graves in the back." Emma looks down at her water. Thinking, for a moment, of Genosha. "And other graves. Without headstones. And no, you can never go back. You can only go forward. I know that very well."

She looks up and gives a little, forced laughed. "My, am I being maudlin. Tell us what you would like to teach, and the approach you would like to take. What about teaching young mutants interests you? Have you any experience with us?"

[a-sloane.livejournal.com]

There is no satisfaction that his gamble has worked, that there are no more enquiries about his past; the sense of having failed Nadia is too profound right now. Graves without headstones, Emma says, and he thinks of his other daughter, his first daughter, Emily's child, dying after a few breaths, that child Emily had asked him never to talk about. With an effort, he focuses again. He doesn't have the resources of APO at his disposal anymore, or Marshall, so his information on Emma Frost and Scott Summers is limited to the officially available facts, but these do include several losses she could think of. It's something to consider later. Right now, it's time to get to the purpose of this little enterprise.

Sloane steeples his fingers.

"As far as conventional subjects are concerned, I'd suggest languages - Spanish, French and Italian, and Latin, though I am aware its practical use is limited. Still."

And in Latin, recalling her answer to his question about reading thoughts in other languages, he thinks:

"It offers a constructive and elegant exercise of the mind."

Which in itself is a little challenge and a test, as to whether not she continues to scan him. Out loud, he goes on:

"But I am aware your young students are in need of more than a scholarly education. These days more than ever, considering their lessened number and the the heightened public hysteria about, shall we say, people with gifts. Now I have no doubt that your current staff already includes experts on martial arts. But do they include strategists, Emma? I won't waste your time by being coy. The majority of my life was being spent coming up with scenarios to infiltrate and destroy anything from goverments to terrorist groups. That's what I was trained for. And you know much better than I do that mutants are being regarded as enemies by either, and sometimes at the same time. I know how both sides think, Emma, and I could prepare your students on how to deal with both."

The waiter, having withdrawn as soon as dead daughters were mentioned, returns and asks whether they want to order. Sloane tells him to leave the menu and wine lists here and give them some more time to consider. Then he leans back in his chair, intent gaze now going from Emma to Scott.

"As for my own interest in you... as I said, I don't want to be coy, so I'll skip general fascination with change and mystery. To teach is to learn, as much as it is anything else. I could learn from you and your students. I want to."

And then he looks at Emma again and thinks: Not least because I have reason to believe I am fundamentally changed on a genetic level, very recently.

And he gives her an image that comes from the period shortly after his memories begin again, after he decided to put what was claimed in the letter he left to himself to the test: he can't die anymore. It is not an immediate process - if he cut his skin now in front of them with a knife, it would take some time to heal - but it is there, and works, no matter how severe the wound. Immortality. Though he can't remember anymore how and when he achieved it.