7016/Leviathan: They're Crepes in France You Know

Leviathan: They're Crepes in France You Know
Date of Scene:	24 March 2019
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Brunch at Chez Miscreant is filled with revelations. Some good. Some bad. The food? Tasted kinda like Waffle House..
Cast of Characters:	Melinda May, Quake, Hellboy, Hawkeye (Barton), Jemma Simmons, Winter Soldier
Tinyplot:	Leviathan

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Melinda May has posed:
It's a Sunday morning, and actually a quiet one for a change. May has a rare day off duty, and damnit, she's going to make use of it. Texts are sent, and vehicles are requisitioned. Barton is told to extract Skye and take her home (yes, she means the house in Greenwich), and Simmons is given an address and a time along with no more explanation beyond 'bring tea'. Hellboy.... May sees him in the hallway on her way to the motorpool and all he gets is "Hellboy. With me."

Eleven AM, the Barton and Johnson residence.

The fridge has been refilled with groceries (not too many, just a few basics and NO frou frou beer), the curtains have all been pushed open to let in the early spring sunshine such as it is, and May has already started cooking.

Surprised? You shouldn't be.

Quake has posed:
Skye is.. well, Skye. She's been up *mumbly* hours trying to crack the whole Zola thing. Well, there's that, and the whole 'guess what, suddenly you're an SO!' thing too, which involved a lot more remembering the things you're supposed to do (and not how she herself had done them) thank-you very much May. But she got the point: Skye was excellent at what she was recruited for, the outside the box and on the fly, but she wasn't going to be useful past her current level if she didn't get the other under her belt as well. And unlike her previous forays into being an SO, which weren't legitmate, or sanctioned beyond the very cursory we'll allow this until that mission is over, Samantha was a living, breathing, actual recruit who was supposed to turn out into a promotable agent at the end of the day.

Which was rather not Skye's usual mode.

Between her father, arranging for the meeting with Frank Castle, miscellaneous Bird business, the Galina defection, and Samantha, her work on tracking down Zola's presence in SHIELD had fallen by the wayside.

What was supposed to only be a 'Just a few more of these folders and I'll join you' goodnight kiss to Clint had turned into a banker's box and thensome of papers scattered over all the open surfaces of their Triskelion quarters.

Cue: One Clint Barton instructed to extricate his partner from work mode.

Hellboy has posed:
    For Hellboy's part, when Melinda spoke Big Red listened, really there was no reason for him not to. It's how he found himself at the grocery store in black shorts and matching black shirt, ignoring the stares of people to help pick out things, and to help push the cart. On that, he'd insist, though the prospect of trying to fit his frame(including one hell of a right hand) through checkout, meant that he'd break off at the very end and wait for her outside.

    That was then. Now, at the actual place, the agent looked up at the gleaming sunshine through the window, looking over at Melinda and the others.

    "Not a bad place you've got here. Mine is still a pigsty. Perks of the traveling lifestyle."

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
Clint had actually had a good night's sleep and waking up to the buzz of his phone and finding Skye not beside him he knows where to find her.

Sending a quick message back reading: On the way.

He gets up, pulls on some fresh clothes and heads out to the living room. "C'mon we're being summoned," he says, "You've got five minutes to get ready."

More tha likely, 15+ minutes later he's on the way to their old place and another ten sees them stepping through the door with Clint calling out.

"Hey, May, we're here!"

Jemma Simmons has posed:
    When the simple directive was given, Jemma was in the lab, as usual. Not as per usual was the amount of physical paper that she was sorting...the medical records of one defecting Crimson Dynamo. Fortunately, the good doctor was mostly sorted, so it was a relatively simple matter to clean up. The simple directive might have been ignored if from another person, simply because there is more than one workaholic in SHIELD.

    But, this directive came from May. And Jemma knows better than to forgo a directive from May, no matter how vague.

    And so, with a proper tea service (because of course she has one), Jemma Simmons is already on site when Clint arrives. There may be a slightly confused expression, which seemed to be present the moment Jemma had arrived, but that is quickly replaced with her default pleasant mien. "Well, I am beginning to see this is a dastardly ploy to pull us out of work. Not that I mind at all."

    For a scientist, Jemma can be a little slow to grasp concepts...like taking breaks.

Melinda May has posed:
"Not my place," May tells Hellboy. It might seem like a lie as she let herself right into the place as if she has a key (doesn't she?) and then took over the kitchen and seems to know where all of the dishes and utensils live. The stack of pancakes is growing at an alarming rate, there is bacon sizzling away, and for those heathens arriving, coffee has just finished brewing.

Jemma's proper tea service is very much appreciated, and as Clint and Skye finally arrive she calls out, "Coffee's ready." Because she knows SOME people are heathens.

Quake has posed:
Skye was, of course, muttering to herself when Clint issues the '5 minute warning'. She, herself, has no actual idea of the time given that she'd long ago hacked into her quarters security systems and shut off most of the enhanced features - like the fake sunlight, and morning birdcall, amonst others - to suit her rather more nocturnal inclinations. In their Greenwich home the pair had had to invest in decent blackout curtains to achieve the same effect.

As Clint leads her away, she grabs up a pile of the folders she's been purusing, insisting, "I've got it. I mean, my finger, it's almost on it."

Were she hacking this, and not dealing with paper files, she'd have gotten it already, but this different mode of thinking was requiring her to stretch herself.

Outside, in the spring sunshine, watery and bright, she winces, "Why do people do this to themselves voluntarily." Because, hacker: Night person. Citizen of darckened back rooms with stale cups of coffee and candy bars for nourishment. None of this fresh air and sunshine bullshit. "You better be taking me somewhere nice. Somewhere with coffee."

Though it doesn't take her long to catch on to where they were heading, a suspicion that is confirmed as they walk up the steps to their Greenwich house. Skye pausing at the door to inform, "You realize it's me that May is going to Lowjack for this little escapade, right? Because we are most definitely not allowed to be here."

Which, it should be noted, does not stop her from letting herself into the place, noting as an aside that the should be locked door is unlocked as she does so.

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
Clint for his part keeps his mouth shut. Which for anyone who knows him is sort of impressive. There's a faint knowing smirk on his lips the whole way there.... and okay a couple of comment.

"The Zola info?" he asks about what she'd found. "Getting close?"

Then he adds: "Coffee?" he asks her when that sweet ambrosia is brought up. "Maybe tea?"

"And no clue with the whole getting up early thing," Clint admits. He's no hacker, but his past criminal, vigilante, superhero and spy activities had kept him from being a morning person for most of his life. "I think Father John used to tell me getting up early built character, but who needs that when there's sleep."

He nods sagely.

"Well, about that," Clint says about May Lowjacking her. He leads the way inside, replying to the announcement about coffee with a grin. "So I guess they do have coffee.

He walks in nodding to Hellboy and Simmons. "Hey Red, Simmons, welcome to chez Miscreant."

Hellboy has posed:
    Hellboy was glad he'd cleaned his hooves. Tracking dirt and mud on to the carpet and floors wasn't something Red ever liked doing, and it was something he especially didn't want to do to fellow agents, people who were no doubt stressed with whatever it is they were working with. Honestly, HB often operated on a "don't ask don't tell" policy that served him great, considering his own kind of work was often whole other kinds of classified.

    He wasn't much of a smiler, and when Clint spoke he got the same dull, slack-jawed stare Hellboy gave everyone else. But he did get a nod from the red man even as that red man strongly resisted every urge to smoke. He really needed to cut back one of these days, but he could do that any time. So he'd just do it later.

    "It's very cozy. You must be paying an arm and a leg for it."

Winter Soldier has posed:
So, there wasn't a Bucky a moment ago. No sign of him. But he has that ability reserved for ninjas and really skilled butlers of just kind of manifesting out of nothingness....so now there's this guy in an old army parka and jeans and henley shirt, taking off a dark baseball cap. The one some wit gave him that's decorated with WW II service ribbons and the phrase 'WW II Veteran' stitched on it. He's got a worn canvas tote over one arm - he's brought some contributions to the feast, it seems.

That stony lack of expression softens into a broad grin, the one that makes him look like the Bucky from the old pictures, when he spots Hellboy. "Hey, Red. Long time no see. I shoulda known someone making pancakes'd summon you."

Jemma Simmons has posed:
    With teacup in hand, Jemma sits at the counter island. She managed to find a stool that didn't wobble and is perched upon it rather casually. There is a smile as Jemma lifts her teacup in greeting to Clint. A small sip is taken, then the cup placed down as Jemma allows herself to look around.

    "You have a rather lovely home." Jemma's eyes fall on the couches...and an eyebrow raises in curiosity. "though I have to admit. I have never seen a sofa in quite that particular color of purple before. It is very..." Jemma pauses, looking for a polite way to convey her opinion. "...unique."

    Well, that's one way to describe it.

Melinda May has posed:
One precarious looking stack of pancakes is done, and a second stack is well underway. May could well be preparing an entire 5 lb. bag of flour over here. The bacon is deftly moved to a plate with paper towels, and then she calls out over the general greetings, "Who wants eggs?" Because when she's done cooking, she's DONE cooking.

Twenty years ago, she'd never have thought that that undercover operation working in a Waffle House would ever prove to be useful life experience. Go figure.

"Barton, Skye, there's a folder on the kitchen table for you."

Quake has posed:
Skye is, perhaps unexpectedly, perplexed, though the lure of coffee is strong, and she finds herself wandering kitchwards only to encounter the myriad of guests already assembled there. "Hi.. Uh.. Everyone?"

Then it hits her, "Hey, is this an intervention or something? Because I have too been taking breaks. You just ask.." Well, there was Samantha, but the girl could be said to be easily bought if only to please her SO (not that Sam would necessarily lie for Skye, but it was possible). "Well, I have to. And besides, if I weren't working we wouldn't have the information on the terrigen."

Gratefully, she snaps up a coffee, and sighs as she puts the folders she's brought with her on the table and sits, contemplating the folder May has directed she and Clint to. There's a smile that blossoms over Skye's features as she cups her mug of coffee two handed. "Damn I missed this place. And this cup. And the fact that our neighbours are so going to be knocking on the door later to see what's going on."

Okay, that last one has her smiling almost the most. "Hey, Clint, we still have that welcome mat Wade got us, right?"

Her gaze drifting over to the folder May pointed out. "Work, or?"

Hellboy has posed:
    For his part, Hellboy had both never worked in a wafflehouse, and had never worked undercover(that last part might have been surprising, but it was true.). But as he took a plate and moved to one of the counters where he could comfortable eat while standing, he looked over at the guests already there.

    "Bucky, been a while. I like seeing you out and about, sun is good for you. Or, so I hear. Skye, I'm the last person who should tell anyone about hard work or when to stop. In fact just the other day I was up at a sat-"

    He stopped when he eyed the work dossier, and the man spoke after a brief snort. And a quite bite that included half of the food on his plate. It was gone before anyone realized, and Hellboy was speaking again with that smooth, relaxed tone of voice of his. All the while, his Captain America wristwatch ticking and keeping perfect time.

    "Anything you need my help with?"

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
Clint is caught up a whirl of greetings.

"Hey, pancakes look good," he says to May while he too helps himself to coffee. He would laugh at the idea of May working at a Waffle House but then he did have that one surveilance working in a bakery...

Ugh the mornings...

Getting back into the moment, he gives Jemma a smile. "Yeah, it just appeared in my room at the Avengers mansion one day, as for how it got here, that's classfied."

Then to Hellboy, "Not as much as you'd think. The place belongs to Croft in WAND, she rents it to us on the cheap." Obscenely cheap, which is the only way they made it work.

"Hmm, oh the welcome mat's down in the basement, I think, and yeah, May, what's with the folder?"

As he waits for the answer Bucky gets an upnod of greeting. "Buck," he says.

Winter Soldier has posed:
It turns out what Bucky brought is doughnuts. Krispy Kreme, in fact. Several dozen. He sets them out silently, before he gives Hellboy a little grin. "Yeah, so they tell me," he agrees.

Then there's the folder, and he looks over with interest, though he's still busily getting himself a cup of coffee. IS it for the taste, because even caffeine falls on the list of things his metabolism generally laughs off.

Melinda May has posed:
May looks over her shoulder at everyone, and starts cracking eggs into the pan the bacon was cooked in. Yes, eggs fried in bacon grease. Think about that.

They cook fast, so in just a few minutes she's got six neatly fried eggs on a plate and the stove is turned off. Snoozers lose. She keeps all of the food -- minus what Hellboy has already started -- in the kitchen while a stack of plates and silverware to the table. Then, finally, the food is set out for people to dig into, and she goes to get herself soem tea from Jemma's set up.

If there's no food left for her, she will be VERY disappointed.

Quake has posed:
Skye is way too into her coffee venerating to notice food is being offered. Besides, it's still pre-noon. Who eats before noon? What kind of barbaric custom is that anyway? She does, however, peek at the folder, a folder that contains a swath of paperwork that she reads through, frowning, until a small noise of disgust escapes her. "Oh. Nice one."

Wordlessly, she closes the folder, and shoves the swath over to Clint without explaining, letting him discover the reason on his own.

Fingers tap, first along the side of her coffee mug, and then along the folders she brought with her. "I'm trying to puzzle something out." Her gaze drifting over the gathered and making the executive decision that they're all cleared. "I finally found Zola in the records. But there's a bit that's not quite making sense to me. He was working on a project, and then he died. Project Terminus. I just can't put my finger on it. The project was terminated, but the records didn't stop."

A pause.

"Well, they did. Kind of. There were some obscure references to the project by someone only identified as Z - but the project doesn't seem to have full records. Just that they tested it on someone about the time of Zola's death and the subject lived till sometime in the 90's. No who the subject was. Not what they found. Not much at all."

She gives Jemma a helpless look. "You guys aren't hiding any records in the basement, are you? No stories about some zombie subject whose brain they put into a machine? Because I'm stumped."

The gears continue to work.

Winter Soldier has posed:
The mention of Zola's made Buck's face go still, in that careful way he has. It's meant to hide distress, but ends up being just as obvious a tell as one might expect anyway. He swallows hard, once and says, "....I think that might be me. Or something related to me," he says, slowly. There's that furrow between his brows. "It's ringing some kind of bell, but...." He shakes his head. "Paperclip was the SSR op that brought a lot of Nazi and HYDRA scientists to the US. You shoulda heard Peggy's opinion of *that*," he says, reminiscently.

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
Clint blinks and looks through the papers, grinning when he finishes. They were cleared to move back in. "Guess we're going to have a longer commute again," he says not sounding like he minded one bit.

As for the Krispy Kremes? Yoink. He snatches one up and takes a big bite chewing and peering at the eggs May's cooking up. Nodding approvingly, "Hey didn't even have to say that's how I take them."

He'd come to love a good fried egg from roaming the various roads in the US both a s circus performer and a crook.

"Wait, who's project was it? Hydra or SHIELD's?" Clint asks Skye. "I thought Bucky was a Hydra thing," he looks at Bucky for confirmation. "Or was Zola punching in at SHIELD then working on things with Hydra on his off time?"

"And no doubt," Clint adds about Peggy Carter's view of working with their former enemies.

Hellboy has posed:
    Hellboy was watching and listening to the conversation, but not intruding. This was 'real' SHIELD stuff, not the sort of things he typically dealt with. Speaking of, a red light light atop his watch suddenly blinked, and he looked around while gently placing his fork down and heading for the door.

    "Sorry to dine and dash, but it looks like I'm needed elsewhere. Whatever's going on with those old ex-nazzies, I know you'll all get the better of it. And I'll have to tell Lara that she's got great taste. In places, and tennants."

    And with that, the big man was gone.

Quake has posed:
Skye gives Bucky a long look, "Oh. So you were part of that too. Yeah. Paperclip. That's what they nabbed him under. Him and a bunch of uh.. well, him and a bunch of others." She's not surprised that Peggy Carter wouldn't have been impressed by the whole affair. Brilliant mind or not, Zola was a sympathizer, and if his current activies were anything to go by, his ethics were for sale - as long as they suited his own goals.

It wasn't a thing Skye was impressed to learn about SHIELD.

"He worked for SHIELD," she informs. She's known that for a time now - that Zola was part of SHIELD. The rest, Project Terminus, and all, she'd only just learned of. "He blames us for his wife's death. But him dying so soon after? And the project carrying on.. oh god. Maybe that's why there aren't official records." Because if there was one thing this foray into the basements and the papertrails that weren't digitized had taught Skye, it was that there were some things that were *NEVER* going to be digitized, and some of them did not shine favourably upon SHIELD.

Zola, and his experiment was one of those things.

"Terminus required a brain to be put into a machine. I know he likes to be in a body, but I don't think he's limited to that anymore. I think he's - I don't think he's brain anymore. I think he's all programming. But that might explain it. What if Zola had his own brain put into the machine. What if he never died when the official records state?"

Melinda May has posed:
May waves after Hellboy as he takes his leave and then settles at the table, though not before snagging a Krispy Kreme for herself. It's added to her plate along with some of each thing she's just cooked, and then set on top of the files in front of Skye. "Unless you can tell me with one hundred percent honesty that you've eaten something other than candy bars, coffee, or instant ramen in the past sixteen hours, eat."

She looks over at Barnes and his attempt at a lockdown of his features, and fills a second plate to set in front of him. Barton simply gets a raised eyebrow.

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
Clint stuffs the rest of the donut into his mouth and licks his fingers.

"Wait, Zola was SHIELD?" he says. "Jesus... talk about chickens coming home to roost."

He shakes his head and helps himself to a second donut because it's handy and full of carbs. "This make anyone want to storm into Fury's office and find out what else we've got going on?"

The brain thing gets a bit of a shudder. "Well, pretty clear he didn't die when he was supposed to but you mean he didn't just fake his death but they took out his brain like Spock in that one episode of Star Trek? A brain in a jar hooked up to a computer so he could keep doing evil science for us?"

It was a lot to think of, he stuffs down his donut and then fills a plate for himself seeing May's gotten Skye handled.

He returns to the table. "Jeeze, this is so weird, even for us."

Winter Soldier has posed:
"It was the mission to get Zola off a train while HYDRA was transporting him somewhere that got me killed," Bucky says, after murmuring his thanks to May. Whatever upset he might feel about it....the fall from the train, his last sights Steve's stricken face and then the white of a snowy sky....it's locked down.

Enough so that he eats, albeit mechanically. A good soldier wastes no opportunity to eat, even if he's fairly sure he knows where regular meals are coming from.

Quake has posed:
"Zola was SHIELD," Skye confirms. "He - it came up when he was torturing me."

Her lips curl over a frown as her brow furrows, and while she'd really like to protest the plate in front of her, of that list of May's, the only thing Skye hadn't had in the past 16 was the instand ramen. She'd been subsisting on cold coffee and candy bars - typical Skye work fare.

Reluctantly, she sticks a fork into the stack of pancakes before her. Not that she doesn't like May's cooking, or that the food isn't both tasty, and welcomed, but what appetite she might have had was fast fleeing in front of her memories of being coaxed over to the dark side, and this whole matter of what the hell had SHIELD been thinking then? It was the dark underbelly of the beast she didn't want to see.

Melinda May has posed:
"Yes, SHIELD did some highly questionable things in the past," May starts while finally loading up a plate for herself, though Clint gets a narrow look for foregoing the cooked food in favor of a second donut. "Things that I would never have tolerated if I had been there. And those things are coming back to roost now, and we're the ones paying the price. Skye, let me see if I can find anything else out about this project Terminus." She doesn't say aloud that she'll share what she finds, mostly because at this point it'd be a given. "But I can't do that until tomorrow morning. So this is an order. You're going to take the rest of today to rest. Understood?"

Hawkeye (Barton) has posed:
Shooting Bucky a sympathetic look, Clint says, "Sorry we screwed that up for you," he says about the mission to capture Zola. It was less capture, more set loose. Clint frowns, feeling some of those old reservations about SHIELD coming back until May's word remind him of why he stayed: the people. What ever happened in the past the people here now were good and fighting for something.

"Right, rest today, tomorrow we hunt the Nazi computer program, brain guy...Crap, and I thought M.O.D.O.K. was weird," he goes to get himself some coffee and yes, real food.