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Just the Facts; -Rogue
Topic Started: May 31 2013, 06:01 PM (328 Views)
Jamie Madrox
Unregistered

Date: May 20
Time: Lunch


“Detective work is a lot like a this double-decker cheese burger sandwich,” he said as he sat down across from Rogue and put the tray down that had both of their lunches on it. “It’s big and messy and probably not good for you…” He had no idea where he was going with this to be honest. This was maybe the thirteenth analogy he’d tried on Rogue today alone and each of them was worse than the last. “…but it’s…yummy? And…cheap?” He shook his head. “Am I at least getting closer?”

Rogue was the newest recruit. Like so many of the others she had something of a checkered past, but Alix had spent some quality time with her in another world and Jamie trusted Alix implicitly…so this wasn’t any weirder than it had to be. Besides, who didn’t have a checkered past? They could probably dig up some dirt on the pope if they tried hard enough.

While they opened up their grease-laden lunches Jamie snuck a peek up at the young lady across from him. “We’ve had probably a dozen cases spring up this week that have something or other to do with missing people or the whole heroes thing…” He took a bite and let that little tidbit hang out there between them for a moment before finishing his thought.

“So business is good, but we’re stretched thin. Like this case we have today? Jacob Alexander?” He sipped on his soda and glanced at the open file on the table beside them. “Union worker for the railroad. Father of two…really strong. Guess he saved two of his co-workers when they were pinned under part the building that collapsed. The wife says she hasn’t seen him since he went in to work two days ago.”

Drying the grease off of his fingers he took a picture of the wife out. She looked like she might be perpetually angry and unkempt. “Not exactly a looker,” he said. “Just sayin’…this guy might want to disappear.” He put the picture back and looked back at Rogue.

“You never really said…what was it that interested you here? I mean of all the options you had, why private investigation?”
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Rogue
Unregistered

“Oh sweet Jesus, deliver me,” Rogue murmured through a mouthful of fries as she looked to the ceiling in theatric exasperation. But despite her drawling words, there was a smile upon her face. Jamie was a character, that was for certain. He was kind and affable and never stopped talking. Ever. She could see why those at the Brownstone thought so highly of him. “Sugah, Ah surely hope y’don’t mean the detectives who work with yah are cheap? ‘Cause Ah’m fairly certain there are a few scary ladies up at that Brownstone that might take offense.”

This outing was one of the first times she had ever been alone with Maddrox. He accepted her on good faith due to her relationship with Alix, but she was still an unknown quantity he was testing out. She knew that, as well as respected that, and despite her general apathy she actually found she wanted to make a good impression on the man. So, between mouthfuls of greasy goodness, she listened intently, green eyes fixed on his person as he described the current batch of cases – paying special attention to the one they were currently tasked with.

Peering at the picture attached with the file, she slowly arched an eyebrow. “Ah’m sure she has a sparklin’ personality.” She dry-panned. But when inquired as to what she was doing with the Investigative squad, Rogue paused.

What was she doing there, exactly? It was a difficult question to put an answer to, because she wasn’t exactly sure there was an answer that she was cognizant of. Taking a sip of her thick milkshake, she mulled over an appropriate response.

“Ah dunno. Maybe Ah just wanted a change of scenery. Maybe the X-Men denied mah application. Maybe that’s a mystery for ya ta figure out for yourself, mistah Investigator man.” She drawled, tongue in cheek. But after a second she annexed her words with a more sincere response.

“…When Ah was a kid, Ah went through a lot, very quickly. Ah’m sure most mutants go through this period, but at the time, it seemed like Ah was the only one in the world to ever experience it. Ah was so lost…with so many questions an’ no one to turn to. An’ when Ah found someone to ask them ta…well, let’s just say she took advantage of how stupid Ah was back then.” Her feelings towards Mystique, her adoptive mother, were too complicated to delve into detail with now. “Ah keep wondering, if Ah got the right answers right off the bat…where would Ah be now, y’know? And that’s what you guys do, right? Give answers?” A pause. “Ah think Ah’d like to be the one givin’ the answers for once.”
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Jamie Madrox
Unregistered

It wasn’t an unusual story by any stretch of the imagination. Not everyone struck out into life and found their way right off the bat after all. Sometimes people had to try a few different things to get a feel for what they had a heart and a stomach for. Jamie was pretty sure that he didn’t know the whole story behind what had happened with Rogue during her more formative and impressionable years. He knew something of it, he knew what was public knowledge and a little that Alix had told him…but not the full story. He didn’t have to hear it in her voice or see it in her eyes that there was much more to the story than he knew about. Everyone had much more to their story than they wanted anyone to know. He’d be more surprised if she didn’t.

“Answers,” Jamie said with a light chuckle. “We’ve solved more than thirty cases this year, and do you know how we do that? Every time we go into a situation I’m pretty positive that we don’t know the answers. In fact, from my experience the second we think we know the answer we start to miss the most important clues. Detective work is not about knowing anything, it’s about observing the facts. And there’s nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”

“Is he quoting Sherlock Holmes?”

Jamie turned to the dupe who was sitting down and helping himself to one of the fries.

“If he says ‘The game is afoot’ I want you to curl up your fist and punch him square in the nose.”

Now Jamie was merely staring at him. “That would be stupid, because everyone knows evil that is afoot. I thought that was elementary.” He slid his fries just out of the dupes reach and raised his brows. “Did you find anything, or are you just here to annoy?”

“Besides the three fights he’d been in on the job, the fact that his wife is having an online affair, the fact that he’s something of a gambling addict and the fact that he is a regular client with a particular escort service in Mutant Town?” The dupe reached over and helped himself to one of Rogue’s fries. “Why…yes I did. And I think you two need to head over to the shady part of Mutant Town. The last one who saw this super freak was a guy named Dice. He’s kind of a…loan shark.”

Slyly he reached for another of her fries.

“Did I mention that our guy was a gambling addict?” He was pretty sure he did.
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Rogue
Unregistered

“Why are you here, then?” She found it prudent to ask, watching Jamie carefully out of the corners of her eyes. “Ah mean, why here? Why not an X-Man? What answers are you lookin’ for?”

Sometime between her waxing poetical and his non sequitur pop culture references, Jamie’s duplicate had arrived. Rogue finished off a bite of her burger, before arching one brow in amusement at the interaction between Jamie and the dupe. Man, he really did talk a lot. Even to himself. She hid her smile behind a hand after the dupe instructed her to punch prime in the nose for the quotations, but even she couldn’t quite keep from letting out a laugh at the end of it all.

"Are they always mouthy like that?" She inquired of Prime, genuinely and curiously bemused. But there was business to attend to; she could marvel at the peculiarities of his mutant gift later.

“A gambling addict? Well, that sounds promising. Almost too easy, though…” She wiped her mouth with a napkin, before rising to her feet. The rest of her fries were nudged in the dupe’s direction. “So what’re we waitin’ for, Jamie? We’ve got a deceptively obvious fact to investigate, yeah?” A beat. “…Do Ah even want to know how you know about the online affair thing?”

She was excited. She wanted to prove her worth to Jamie; to prove that Alix’s confidence was not in vain. She was eager to go out there and feel as though she was contributing in some measureable fashion, and she was more than ready to get her hands dirty. So she looked to Prime with a confident smile, hand resting on her cocked hip. “So…this Dice character. Y’know where ta find him? ‘Cause if not… I’ve a good idea of where to look.”
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Jamie Madrox
Unregistered

“Are they always mouthy like that?”

He echoed her question and pretended to think it over while the dupe folded his arms and leaned against another table with a satisfied smirk pulling his lips back into a snarky grin. “You have NO idea,” he said after letting her look over at the evidence and draw her own conclusions. Of course they were always like that. Someone like Freud might have to deduce that Jamie had it in for himself, as much trouble as his dupes gave him. They were him and he was they…so why did they fight against him so much? Freud would have it partially right and entirely wrong at the same time. Jamie didn’t have it in for himself…but he did see the value of a little self-depreciation now and again.

The dupe almost seemed proud of himself when Rogue asked him how he knew about the existence of the online affair. “Now Rogue, you should know that I can’t exactly reveal my trade secrets. You might as well ask Houdini how he made his big escape. Or ask David Copperfield how he performed his greatest illusions…” He gestured with his hands as he drew the word ‘illusions’ out and tried to make it seem more impressive and mysterious.

“Or ask Willy Nelson how he evaded the IRS for so long,” Jamie added helpfully. The dupe gave him a sidelong look of disapproval.

But then they were up and they were ready to rumble (so to speak). The two Jamie’s looked at one another when she asked if they knew where to find the guy and it seemed pretty evident that they didn’t have a clue. Still, he masked his relief that she had a good place to start with an indifferent shrug. “Of course we have ideas on where to start.” The dupe chimed in with “We’re professionals.” Then they looked at each other and shrugged, saying the rest of it in perfect unison, their voices almost in stereo as they replied.

“But we’ll just go with your idea for now.”

Jamie reached over and grabbed the dupe, pulling him into himself as they headed for the Ferrari. “I got you some cool sunglasses,” he said, handing her a bag. “It’s required for riding in the Italian sportscar. He opened his door and got in, firing up the engine and letting it purr sexily for a moment before looking over the top of his rims at her.

“Where we headed?”
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Rogue
Unregistered

“Talk about your inner demons,” Rogue commented with a playful smile, shaking her head in bemused wonder at that revelation. She wondered if Jamie always wrestled with those contrasting, warring against each other within his head even before they manifested themselves corporally. If so, she wondered how he coped. It had taken Rogue years and years to build up a tolerance to having invading personalities within her mind, and even now it was not a control but a blunted numbness. There were times when she Absorbed and still felt overwhelmed, kowtowed by her own victims. But she was stubborn. And she was strong. “Somethin’ tells me Ah can relate.”

And she’d be damned if she gave someone else free reign over her body.

“Lemme guess, you googled her an’ she showed up on some dating website?” Annamarie inquired as the duplicate went on about the secrets of his trade. She wasn’t sure if what she proposed was even viable, but as a person she veered toward having a smart mouth, and it was simply too easy an opportunity for her to pass up on. It was something she presumed Jamie of all people would appreciate, so there was no point in her taming her mouth in this regards.

But then two became one, and that one offered Rogue a bag with a pair of sunglasses within. She looked at the bag curiously, unable to quell the preliminary rush of suspicion at the generous act. She was unaccustomed to it; unaccustomed to receiving gifts without strings attached. She had to remind herself that she was not among friends; that they were not like the Brotherhood, who would extend a hand and then demand a return for their aide immediately. They were in the business of helping others.

“Thanks,” she murmured, sliding the glasses on. As she stepped into the ostentatious car, her lips curled into a smirk. “But you best be drivin’ us home. Where we’re goin’, a car as nice as this is only goin’ ta attract attention. And all the wrong sort, too. We walk.”

And walk they did. By the time they reached the old, decrepit theater in the heart of Mutant Town, Rogue had ensured that they were dressed the part; careful to dress in nice clothes without looking overly nice. They snuck into the run-down lobby from the back, ducking beneath planks of wood and broken glass. The building was in ruins; a relic of a once glorious past. And most importantly, it seemed empty.

Suddenly, Rogue swirled around to stare at Jamie severely. “Now play it cool, yeah? Ah don’t want you to go in messin’ up the joint without needin’ ta. We don’t want ta make enemies.” The warning administered, she strode over to a metal door and knocked three times. “Clover.”

And suddenly, it swung open, revealing an underground, well kept gambling bunker. Turning to Jamie proudly, she smiled. "If your man Dice works in Mutant town, someone here'll know 'im."
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Jamie Madrox
Unregistered

Somehow this just wasn’t going the way he’d imagined it was going to go at all. First there was the thing with the car and really he had it all sort of mapped out in his head, him behind the wheel of the sexy sports car, another of XFI’s fine foxy ladies by his side as they rolled down the street. Him in his sunglasses, her in her sunglasses. People would take notice. People would talk.

And why was it exactly that he listened to her when she said they were going to walk again? He wasn’t sure, but he followed behind her trying to figure it out. No, this wasn’t going the way Jamie Madrox had planned it to go at all.

Still, she was right and he knew it. That car was anything but inconspicuous. That was why he liked it of course, but the last thing they needed was a lot of attention right now. They needed to fly in low under the radar, come in like a Stealth bomber and leave before anyone knew what was going on. No need to draw the wrong kind of heat down on them. At the door he purposely tipped the glasses down and looked at her over the rims.

“Play it cool is my middle name. James Play it Cool Madrox, my parents shortened it and just called me Arthur instead, but…” She wasn’t even listening. Not cool. “Clover,” he said with a clearly impressed expression. “That’s cool.” He had to admit, Rogue was owning this right now. He strolled into the bunker with her, eyes scanning the room coolly and as they walked down to a central gaming area he leaned over to her. “I’ve seen Rounders like six times,” he said. As if that was supposed to inspire confidence in her.

You didn’t just go parading into a place like this and asking questions. You had to play the part of the big time gambler. So he pulled up a chair at a table and looked around, doing his best impression of someone who belonged. He couldn’t really figure out why everyone was staring at him so he leaned over to Rogue slyly and spoke under his breath.

“Do I have a booger or something?”
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Rogue
Unregistered

“Oh really now,” Annamarie did not doubt for a second that Jamie had watched Rounders exactly that many times. The wry amusement in her voice stemmed from the fact that she severely doubted how useful that little tidbit of Madrox information would be in their current situation. But she had no reason to doubt him; he ran a successful Private Investigations firm, one of the premier businesses in Mutant Town and a gem among the community. He must have picked up a few tips and tricks here and there about how to behave while on the job – she was sure he could handle himself.

At least, until he decided that he was going to waltz on in and sit at a table with some of the biggest thugs and gamblers of all of Mutant Town. An assortment of people stared at Jamie, nonplussed by his arrival, and all of them were of the unsavory department. When a gigantic customer in a track suit started to move, Rogue swept in. She placed her gloved hands upon Jamie’s shoulders affectionately as she stood behind him, the way a supportive significant other might, before turning her most dazzling smile to the inhabitants of the table.

“Howdy, ya’ll!” She greeted warmly, her southern drawl amplified with purpose. Her fingers dug into Jamie’s shoulder, hoping to force him to play along. “Ah’m Melanie, an’ this here’s my boyfriend, Travis. Ah heard from a cousin o’ mine that you folks like ta play.”

”Devuschka,” the burly, balding man growled out, his beady eyes set on Rogue. “We do not play here. We tend to business. Buy in is 50,000. You in or out?” The man looked to Jamie skeptically and with malintent. He smelled a rat, and wasn’t buying their presence here whatsoever. Which is what motivated Rogue to sensuallu slip her hand down Jamie’s chest and into the inside pocket of the Multiple Man’s jacket, where she produced a set of keys to a certain Ferrari. Slowly she turned it in her hands, allowing the men at the table to see the insignia on it before slamming it on the table with confidence.

“Oh, sugah. We're in alrigh'.” She hoped Jamie was up to snuff when it came to Poker, because he needed to buy them enough time to do their jobs now.
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Jamie Madrox
Unregistered

“Boyfriend?” He looked at her then played it off. “Boyfriend. Right. That’s what I am. The boyfriend. The loverrr. Yess…” He nodded and looked over at the very European looking man who was looking at him flatly. Jamie just shrugged at him as if to say what could he say? And the answer was clearly that he had said more than enough already.

And maybe he should have been paying attention a little more closely because while he was musing over their pretend relationship, Rogue was getting them into the game, and what he supposed was a getting in character little friskiness on her behalf turned out to be more of a lift-the-keys-to-the awesome-ride maneuver. He looked at the glimmering and shining metal in a moment of utter lack of comprehension and blinked once.

Then the keys were on the table and he almost had a panic attack.

Unfortunately while he stammered and stuttered and spit and blubbered the game got underway. At least two of the men had sized up Mr. Madrox and now wore simple and smug little smirks on their fat and hairy little faces. His horrified eyes went from the keys, to the cards that he’d been dealt and then over to his ‘lover’.

“Ope-hay you ow-knay what you’re oing-day…”

He didn’t bother to check on whether these brutes knew Pig Latin or not. Right now he was looking at his cards and doing his best to adopt a sort of poker face as he did. When they asked if he wanted another card he thought it was a pretty good opening. “No dice,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Dice.” He chuckled and glanced over at Rogue. “Guy that works in Mutant Town isn’t it, sweetums?”

Subtle.

“You guys ever heard of Dice?”

Then he noticed how everyone was throwing chips into the middle so he did the same. Meanwhile he kept his face neutral and he counted on the fact that he had been given an extremely good hand off the bat to carry him through to the victor’s seat.
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Rogue
Unregistered

Rogue waited until all eyes had turned away from her before rolling her eyes – albeit good-naturedly – at the table. Men. They were so easy…and Jamie was so not smooth. He was the opposite of smooth – chunky, even. But it was the lack of suaveness on behalf of the Multiple Man that allowed her to pull her slick maneuver; and allowed her to dangle the shiny and expensive bait that would allow her and her partner into the game.

She gave Jamie a supportive squeeze of his shoulders. “Don’t sweat it, sugah. Ah have faith in you,” she assured him, lowered her face to meet his and offering him a smile that was as mischievous was it was alluring. “Just a few hands, hun’. Just ta get the blood goin’. And Ah think so – but is it?”

She looked to the men at the table. Their expressions were carved from stone – they were giving up nothing…nothing yet. No matter. It just meant they had to buy into the system a bit. Maybe up the ante a bit.

And a few rounds the did. Jamie was losing more than he was winning, but for the most part he was breaking fairly even in terms of how many chips he ended up having, in comparison to what he started out with. Then, feeling impatient and fairly concerned that Jamie might have been getting a bit too into the charade, she acted. She leaned forward with authority, pushing all of the chips into the pot with a broad smile.

“Oh, all in, all in! Ah’ve got a good feelin’ ‘bout this one, sweetie, trust me!”

Tension was thick in the air as they began to play out the hand. Jamie’s cards were good, but not too good. Maybe they could bluff their way to victory. Maybe they could…

Come up against a flush and lose horrifically.

Rogue collapsed into hysterics. “Not his car, mistuh – please, no, isn’t their anything we can do! Anything we can trade you?”

“Sorry, miss,” the burly Russian chortled over her cries, though he looked to her curiously with his beady eyes. “’Less you can forfeit 75 grand. That man, Dice. How you know him?”

“My cousin! He owes my cousin money!”

Then, suddenly, a voice called out from the corner of the room. It was a nasally tone, and it erupted from a weasel of a man. “Bullshit! I don’t owe no one nothin’!”

And the moment she heard it, Rogue straightened up. Abandoning her distraught act, she looked over to Dice. “Oh, so you’re the man, eh? We need ta talk. Hey, Jamie – get your car back. We’ve got business to attend to.”
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Jamie Madrox
Unregistered

There were poker faces, and then there was the thing that Jamie was doing right now. He was sitting there with this suffocated look on his face. Like a fish out of water. His mouth worked silently, spelling out something that might have been oh my dear Lord in heaven, or it might have been something much more colorful than that…but really was just an unintelligible strangle of syllables. He gasped and he coughed and he saw flickers of light and he heard voices as if they were coming down a very long tunnel.

“Mm..m…my car!”

This did not happen in Rounders. Well, it kind of did. But not like this. This was just embarrassing! Jamie glanced over at Rogue and his brows furrowed up into an expression of sheer befuddlement and then he looked back at the guy who was saying seventy five million billion or some other equally unattainable number.

Hearing the whining voice coming from the shadowy corner of the room, Jamie zeroed in on him. The man was more than a little unassuming. He wasn’t much of a physical threat, and knowing just how capable Rogue was and just how quickly Jamie could turn the advantage in sheer numbers to their side he didn’t think much of it. But there was something in the back of his mind that told him that this was exactly the kind of guy who might just do anything. This was the kind of guy who might act out of sheer desperation and desperate men were dangerous to everyone around them.

As Rogue headed over to talk to him, Jamie caught her last words to him and he turned back to the table just as the victor was starting to scoop up his spoils…including a set of very nice keys. “Hold on now,” Jamie said with a hand placed over the top of the other man’s. The air got extremely thick with tension right after he did that so he smiled in an attempt to alleviate it a little. “I want a chance to win it back. Double or nothing style.”

He was in over his head, and he knew it. He knew nothing of actual rounding and the only thing he had to go on was the fact that he knew the movie inside and out and could quote parts of it. But this was different. The men looked at one another and then back at Jamie. “If you are unable to pay up on the double portion that you owe us you will not see the light of day again.” And then he smiled. Jamie thought it was odd, the things that made some people smile, but he nodded.

And with that the cards were shuffled, cut and dealt. Jamie focused his intuitive powers of perception. He didn’t have the skillset of an actual ‘Rounder’, but he did have an uncanny knack for reading people. With that and a little luck he might just save his life…and his precious car.

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