7543/Welcoming Party: Sibil

Welcoming Party: Sibil
Date of Scene:	19 May 2019
Location:	Gymnasium - The Triskelion
Synopsis:	Sibil gets to meet a few of the members and associates of SHIELD. Janet van Dyne and Melinda May don't seem to hit it off too well, and Rowan's dog is still fat and fluffy. Steve Rogers is mostly a hapless bystander during all of this.
Cast of Characters:	Sibilance, Rowan Saunders, Captain America, Wasp (van Dyne), Melinda May

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Sibilance has posed:
    Sibilance is here. She's accomplishing her leg day exercise routine. She's also working out the frustration of being a mutant in a world where someone thought it was a good idea to make Sentinels, and she keeps seeing and hearing things about that, and about mutant advocates getting shot, and about bigots getting really valuable platforms to spew hate about mutants. Naturally, she is currently jogging. She can really book it, look at that tiny snake person go. Around and around she goes. Not really the Flash, sure, but that's not a normal land speed for a human being.

    Looks like she got hurt at some point. There's a bandage and splint on her tail. Doesn't seem to impede her much right now.

Rowan Saunders has posed:
Rowan is known as the shrink who brings his overweight yellow lab to work. Sonny is a very friendly dog! He just likes bacon more than he likes exercise. The dog is in Rowan's office at the moment, and he has come down to, indeed, check out the new girl. He's dressed for the gym in a t-shirt and shorts. He's not just going to come down and leer or anything. Except he kind of does stare when he sees Sibilance going so fast. Clearly not something he can do.

Captain America has posed:
Rumors run fast around the Triskelion -- and none faster, apparently, that the rapidly-vining word of a twenty foot-tall woman sparring with Steve Rogers in one of the padded rooms. Apparently, no one died (and there are no new holes in the walls, courtesy of the Captain checking himself), and lo and behold, his voice carries before him as both leave the section of hallway dedicated to those room-types.

"Okay, look, the point of it was to see if you could handle yourself //without// your powers, Janet." Steve is grousing mildly, he is, as he appears. His grey t-shirt is sweated through at the neck and pits and his black sweatpants have a lightened scuff mark at each knee. He slings the white towel around his neck and gives a half-hearted scowl down at the woman beside him. "Not playing fair doesn't suit you."

The dog catches his attention first. Wondering who owns it, he then recognizes Sonny's handler and lifts a hand in greeting. Then he sees the runner on the track and comes to a halt, eyes a little wide. It's not every day one sees a sprinter with a reptilian tail, after all.

Wasp (van Dyne) has posed:
"Uh, I think we all know that not playing fair *perfectly* suits me," Janet rebuts. She's in an electric pink sports bra, athletic leggings with mesh slashes, and very cute white kicks with a pink strip on them. It's the sort of look that most SHIELD agents don't rock because of uniform codes and Janet is getting more than a few looks. One poor agent gets caught staring at her, and she uncorks her water bottle with her teeth to take a gulp. She winks at him playfully and continues on, regal as a queen, in Cap's company or not.

"Look, you said 'train', so we trained, then you said 'okay, to the pin', so we went to the pins, and last time I checked, three beats one, so--" she counts on her fingers, one, towards Steve, then counts to three and lays them on her collarbone. "Yeah, I think I won, and you're super salty about it, annnnd I'm OK with that. If you're not cheating, you're not trying hard enough," she say with a proud nod.

She glances around, then hopskips to whisper something in Steve's ear before they approach the dog and the... lizard.. sprinter... person. Janet gives both an uneasy look and a wide berth at first, hovering next to (slightly behind) God's Perfect Dorito.

Melinda May has posed:
Last to join this impromptu meeting of many people is May. She's -- like everyone else -- dressed for exercise, though her attire is far simpler and plainer than what Ms. Van Dyne is sporting. Her eyes take in everyone already in the room as she skirts the perimeter toward one corner of the room that appears to have been set up for those who prefer yoga. Unlike the others, she seems completely unperturbed by the portly lab or the Silurian-like woman running far faster than is normal. If anything, the woman in casual hot pink gets a fraction more of a split second's glance than the rest.

Setting the few items she has in hand aside, May moves to the center of the small yoga corner and begins a series of warm-up stretches that do indeed resemble yoga... briefly. Then they looks a bit like Tai Chi.

Sibilance has posed:
    Sibil is soon to slow to a stop when she's drawn a crowd. She pants some, her forked tongue hanging out, her eyes blearily peering between all of them. She isn't sure what to say, what to do, and she feels a bit aggressive so she keeps her mouth shut for a second. But Janet's discomfort is easy to read, and the surprise in Steve's face, and the staring from Rowan. She closes her mouth, with her tongue still sticking out some...

    Sibilance frowns at them for staring. That's the most aggression she's willing to risk, especially with Captain America.

    "What's up?" she asks, sounding as breathless as she looks, lifting her scalie, hairless brows. "Something wrong?"

Rowan Saunders has posed:
The fat dog wags his tail as people come in. People are great! Sonny loves people! He looks up at Rowan for permission to go over and pester the people. "Sit, Sonny," he says with a quiet laugh. The dog huffs and grunts, but manages to get his backside on the floor, still wagging.

Rowan then offers Sibil a sheepish wave, and he says, "Sorry. There's nothing wrong. It's nice to meet you, I'm Rowan Saunders, a consultant here. This is Sonny." Sonny's tail thwaps the floor. Rowan offers a wave to Steve and Janet, perking up with recognition at the former, and when he spies May, he stands up a bit taller and says, "Hello."

Captain America has posed:
Steve is very much ignoring how his ears have gone red at whatever the Wasp whispered in his ear. He glances over at May and seems to gain a distancing stoicism about his person in the presence of the Director. "Hey, Rowan," he replies quietly to the man and offers his fingers out nonchalantly in Sonny's direction should they require a sniffing.

He nods in agreement to Rowan's summary of things and adds to Sibil, "Haven't seen your face around here before, you must be new. Special Agent Steve Rogers. This's Janet," he says, side-stepping to reveal more of the petite woman behind him whether she likes it or not.

Wasp (van Dyne) has posed:
Janet's trying to fend Sonny off by pushing her left palm at him. This just provokes licking, and she makes a face. "Hi, nice doggy, yes, okay, that's-- eww." She looks at her hand, and then when Steve introduces her as 'Janet' she looks up at him with a flinty look.

Her palm wipes on his sleeve, twice. "I'm Janet van Dyne," she clarifies, and turns an ebulliant smile on Rowan to offer right hand to him. "AKA, the Avenger Called Wasp. I also run a little business called JVD Fashion." She looks at Sibil a little uneasily, but the lizard-woman is surprisingly soft spoke and exhibits some slightly more human traits in conversation. Janet relaxes by inches, though she still stays in Steve's proximity.

Melinda May has posed:
May does not acknowledge the others until she completes her warmup routine, which is thankfully short. Then, she nods her hello to each of them. "Captain. Ms. Van Dyne. Mr. Saunders. Ms. Garcia. I take it you are all doing well?"

If Sonny's presence is not acceptable to her, she's doing a very good job of not letting it show just like only those who know her truly well would pick up that she is not exactly thrilled at her only chance to exercise today being interrupted.

Barnes would have noticed, and Romanoff. Probably Skye. Maybe Barton.

Sibilance has posed:
    "Ainsley Garcia, Agent-in-Training," Sibil says, with her Spanish-accented voice, matching her Rattlesnake motif aptly. She steps up to greet Sonny, crouching to meet the dog with mirth in her face. She reaches to scritch at his jaw and ears, and says, "(Hello, handsome doggy,)" in Spanish with all the sugar of a cheerful schoolgirl. And she stands up after that, smiling at Steve, and then to Janet. It's a bit forced, the discomfort from the initial impression having rubbed off on her. Janet gets a skeptical look in particular...

    Everyone's reactions to May has her looking over her shoulder toward her. She blinks owlishly a couple times, especially on the woman's approach. Sibil wasn't going to interrupt, but the stoic woman's words get her to softly say, "Hello. Could be better. Just working out some frustration." She flashes a smile at May. The woman's behavior and rank don't seem to cause her to clam up... Maybe it's just because she's new.

    "Just finished my run, though." She looks to Rowan. "Can I help you with anything?" she wonders, since he doesn't seem to be here expressly for exercise purposes.

Rowan Saunders has posed:
Sonny sniffs, then licks Steve's hand, his tail wagging faster. Rowan gives Janet an apologetic look on the dog's behalf, since the dog doesn't look the least bit sorry. "He's great with clients," he says. Then he shakes her hand and says, "It's so nice to meet you, Ms. van Dyne. I'm Rowan Saunders. I'm a psychological consultant."

To Sibil, he says, "Oh, I was just going to run and see if this lard-butt will get some exercise with me." The lard-butt in question has slumped from sitting to sprawling on his side, and he heaves a long doggy sigh. "I might take him outside instead," he says.

Captain America has posed:
Hey, dog spit goes right along with soldier sweat. Shirt's going to get washed anyways after it's thrown in the hamper. Steve gives May a curt nod after she's present with the grouping and murmurs, "Director May," in polite greeting. "Can't complain overmuch. Wouldn't help much in turn."

He glances back to Sibil as she introduces herself and just like that, the agent-in-training's name is filed away along with her face. Steve won't ever forget her. He offers up to Sibil as to an explanation of his presence with,

"Figured we'd say hello. Sparring's done for the afternoon." His attention wanders to Janet again as he slips into a more relaxed stance, a variant of at-ease with thumbs hooked into the pockets of his sweatpants..

Wasp (van Dyne) has posed:
May is given a flat up-and-down. It's the first time Janet's met the woman in person, and there's clearly a little processing time going on. Janet might have been expecting some brutish Trunchbull archetype, or even someone like Carol Danvers with the milkmaid complexion and corn-fed Iowa physique. May's... little. She's even the same height as Janet.

The fahionista's eyes flicker over May, and then she settles back with a little more self-assured expression as she compares their respective weights. Vanity, thy name is Janet.

Then Sibil starts speaking in Spanish and it startles Janet's attention back to the woman. "<Oh hey! You speak Spanish!>" she declares, babbling quiet fluently. "<I thought all you SHIELD types spoke French and other dead languages. Where are you from? Mexico?>" she guesses. Janet speaks with a heavy Brox-earned accent, the sort of thing you pick up learning pidging languages in blended cultural centers. It's fast and rapid fire, too, with the sort of inflections and idioms that make it hard for scholastic students of Spanish to keep up with.

Melinda May has posed:
"Mr. Saunders, is your pet a licensed therapy dog?" May really doubt that the cheerful and slobbery galumph is, but she has to ask. Especially considering SHIELD's regulations about pets in the building versus licensed therapy animals. She is glad to see Garcia responding positively to the lab, though. Maybe the recruit needs to meet Lili, who IS licensed.

The exchange in Spanish has her eyes flicking from Sibilance (who she knew was a Spanish speaker) to Janet (this is news to her). No, she does not follow their words, but she could very easily get someone in Ops to give her a quick translation if she felt it necessary. And, not knowing does not endear Jan to her. Not at all. The similarly petite woman gets a very similar evaluating look, though Steve would recognize it more as a combatant sizing up another than judging another's weight or stature. And yes, May is not as willowy as Janet. But she's a trained martial artist. She'll never be weak-limbed willowy.

Ever.

Sibilance has posed:
    When Janet starts rattling off in Spanish, it's Sibil's turn to stare. It's a startle when someone speaks in her native tongue. "<Born in Catorce, Mexico. Nearby. I'm not really a SHIELD type yet, so maybe I'll start speaking Latin someday, but right now it's just English and Spanish.>" She speaks like someone that's a native, though she has a mellow speaking voice when using it. "But using it around people I don't know very well is rude," she adds, with a flash of a smile.

    May gets another innocent glance. The question posed to Saunders has her looking at the dog and up to the consultant. "Look at him. He's already so therapeutic just looking at him, maybe he'll pass the test," she jokes, gesturing at the tub of canine lard. It's obvious she finds the dog endearing, but, rules are rules, so the joke was posed more to Rowan and not to May.

Rowan Saunders has posed:
Sonny wags at Sibil and licks her hand. He doesn't care if she's a lizard person. He has a lot of love to give. Rowan ducks his head and admits, "He's not licensed as such, no. I had a few clients request him, though, and he's very gentle. I'm working on getting him trimmed up and maybe see about getting him that license." Sonny is bright enough to pick up from Rowan's body language that he's the subject of conversation, and he looks around, tongue lolling, just happy to be part of the group, really.

Rowan glances between Janet and Sibil, though he doesn't give any indication he speaks Spanish. "I can leave him at home if you'd prefer," he says to May, "but he's very friendly." He grins at Sibil. "I think he'd do great on the test."

Captain America has posed:
Steve's ear for Spanish is street-level at very best. He frowns slightly as he listens to the conversation flow around before him in the language, picking up words and essence of the topic at hand after some consideration. His true-blue eyes flick to May and then to Sonny, over to Rowan. The Director's not wrong and the rules are the rules...but he has no horse in this race, and, as such, the Captain simply listens for now.

And continues side-eyeing May for the look she gave Janet earlier on -- which he knows stemmed from something Janet did -- which she did no doubt due to May's presence -- and this is something requiring a thirty-foot pole from his perspective.

Wasp (van Dyne) has posed:
Yep, there's some feline bristling going on between Janet and May. Though honestly, it's all Perfectly Civil. No one's scratching at each other, though the way Janet remains close in Steve's proximity-- slightly between Steve and May-- is probably the next best thing to scent-marking her territory.

"Aya, habla toto que chingada quieres," Janet says with a wrinkle of her button nose. She laughs and grins at Sibil, and flicks a hand through the air reassuringly.

She reaches her arm up and snakes it around Steve's forearm, hugging his bicep casually. "So you're, like, a psychologist? Like a doctor of psychology?" she inquires of Rowan. "Can't you just write your own order certifying her? I mean, who else would know better, right?" she asks, a little rhetorically.

Melinda May has posed:
After looking Janet up and down, May seemingly completely dismisses her and her possessive mannerisms around Steve. He'll either being a giant walking doormat, or he'll realize what she's doing and straighten her out before Barnes or Carter sees it and things get REALLY ugly.

She focuses her attention back on Ainsley, Rowan, and Sonny. "Well. Don't let him wander off and get in touch with Agent Frost if you need to take him for a walk." Frost being the junior agent May assigned to help Barnes mind Lili when he can't take her with him somewhere.

"Ms. Garcia. Have you been settling in well enough?"

Sibilance has posed:
    Sibil balks at the crass language from Janet. Her mouth hangs agape, and she seems pretty shocked for a full five seconds. Then she claps her mouth shut and crosses her arms, and doesn't pursue trying to chide Janet on it any further, instead distracting herself with May's question. "Perfectly, Director. They let me turn the heat up in my quarters once I explained the bodyheat problem, and my flowers are doing excellent in their new home. I was worried the move might harm them." She shines a brilliant smile about that, proud of her botanical hobby. "The air in here is so clean that they've been doing better than expected."

Rowan Saunders has posed:
Rowan glances aside as Janet says swears in Spanish. Nope, he's just a bystander, not getting involved in a conversation he's not part of. He's quick to take in the trio of Janet, Steve, and May, and no doubt conclusions are drawn, but he doesn't share those, either. Instead, he says, "I won't let him wander off, director. He wouldn't get far anyway." Sonny huffs as he hauls himself to his feet again. He's like a barrel with legs. Rowan looks at him. "We're going to fix that, though, aren't we?" The dog, only knowing he's being addressed, wags his tail and waddles up to Rowan's side, and Rowan gives his ears a ruffle. To Janet, he says, "I don't think I can just rubber stamp him like that. That'd be in bad faith." Oh, he's one of THOSE types of do-gooders.

"I think I'll take this guy outside and see if I can get him to run," Rowan tells the others. "Ms. Garcia, it's a pleasure to meet you. You as well, Ms. van Dyne. Director, Captain, it's always a pleasure."

Captain America has posed:
Steve's gaze drops to the hug of a smal hand about his arm. His lips flicker in a small, almost rueful smile that melts away about as fast as it arrived, what with him slipping back into work-mode. He lifts a hand again towards Rowan and replies,

"Take it easy. I'll tell Barnes you said hello." Sonny is given a stronger curl of a smile, but then, again, it fades away to usual stoicism. In his pocket, his phone goes off. Pulling it from his pocket, he frowns at it and glances up at the group.

"I gotta take this, pardon me. Director. Nice to meet you, miss Garcia." A nod to Sibil. "I'll be in the hallway," he adds to Janet before stepping quickly away from the bunch in order to speak quietly into the cellphone as he walks.

Wasp (van Dyne) has posed:
"Steve, I--" Steve's beating a hasty retreat, and Janet scowls at his back. The lummox! She turns around to look at May, who is ignoring her; Sibil who looks shocked at Janet's language; and the psychologist who is Not Looking At Anything.

Janet's not one to back down but there's a time and a place, and three to one on unfamiliar ground isn't the time to try and salvage the situation. "Might be Avenger's stuff, so..." Janet snaps her fingers and pops her first into her palm, clickety-pop-slap. "I'mma go... make sure he's got that covered. The, uh." She wiggles a thumb at the departing Dorito. "Stuff. Nice to meet you all. Director May, Agent Garcia. Doctor...Sanders," she says, and fingerguns at Rowan. "And Sonny."

Janet looks around, flashes a slightly plastic smile and turns her head to follow the waving path of her hand and follow Steve, skitter-stepping just a few times to catch up to him and keep up with quick, regal steps, her head bobbing on level with his shoulder.

Melinda May has posed:
May nods to Rowan as he takes his leave and Steve gets called away. Janet, on the other hand just gets stared at as she makes honestly lame excuses and flees. Because she can claim what she wants. That was fleeing. Then May returns her attention to Sibilance again.

"I'm glad to hear that you and your plants are settling in well. Are you done with your exercises for the day, or did you want to try some simple strength and resistance training?" She gestures back toward the yoga corner.

If the young woman accepts, May will show her some very basic yoga poses that help build core strength. Nothing that requires lifting weights or lying on the floor.

Sibilance has posed:
    "Yeah. Always open to something new," Sibil answers, and she follows May over to do these poses. Sibil will demonstrate flexibility that can best be called 'superhuman' during any stretches she does, of course, but later on. For now, just quiet exercise to take her mind off the worries of the world, for a minute.