Logs:Operation: G.R.I.E.F.

Operation: G.R.I.E.F.
Grim Revelations Interfere with Entertaining Furries
Dramatis Personae Clint, Fury, Natasha	2024-03-17 "The hell you doing here."
Location <NYC> Fury's Apartment - Hell's Kitchen
An easy walk from Times Square, this is a two-bedroom penthouse apartment in a carefully restored historic building, its southern exposure affording an excellent view and letting in as much natural light as the season allows. It's sparsely decorated -- a scattering of framed historical photographs of the city on the pale gray walls -- but comfortably appointed in chic monochrome. The kitchen is definitely the focus of this residence, its black marble and steel kept scrupulously clean and well-provisioned. The master bedroom is capacious, with a queen sized bed and its own bath to boot, but to the observant eye it shows few signs of regular use. The smaller bedroom is set up as an office with a twin bed and entirely too much advanced computer equipment, its door usually kept closed when there are visitors. Dinner has long since come and gone, but Fury's guest is still here, and so his entertaining has graduated to late night snacking. It is probably a mark of his indulgence toward Clint that said late night snack consists of delivery pizza and some garishly labeled IPA with a groan-worthy name. Luckily, Fury had been in the Army for decades before he developed actual taste, and is perfectly equal to sipping Clint's hipster brew and eating greasy pizza out of a generic cardboard box. He's dressed casually by his standards, a solid black flannel shirt and black sweatpants, and is squinting critically at the colorful animated program on his TV. "Damn, is there anyone in Furry Hell don't owe they soul to someone else?" Knock, knock, knock. There's a very limited number of people who would be visiting Fury, period, and fewer still who need to knock. And yet. Here is Nat, dressed bland in leather jacket over red tee shirt, jeans. Knocking, as if she has no other way into the house. "Spoilers." Clint has given the same deapan reply several times already. He's slouched into a corner of Fury's luxurious leather couch in a black tee with colorful silhouettes of six women in various rock star-esque poses and the word SiX superimposed on top (the "i" dotted with a stylized crown) and soft faded blue jeans. "Don't worry about it. Infernal economics is mostly vibes-based as far as I can tell." A slight, thoughtful pause. "Sometimes, the vibes are souls." Fury gives a huff that passes for a laugh, if only barely. "I ain't seen anyone pay to stay in this 'hotel' yet, and why the hell they spell it with a goddamn 'z' anyhow?" Somewhere in the middle of this complaint his eyes cut toward the door and he signs -- gestures, really -- 'knock, knock, knock.' "To annoy you personally." Clint has also given that explanation more than once since he twisted Fury's arm into this particular Hazbin Hotel binge. The interpreted knock earns a very slight uplift of brows. He sets down his beer and goes to answer the door. "Oh good," he says when he finds Nat outside of it. He does not indicate what "oh no" her presence might have averted. Nat gives Clint's hand a light squeeze in passing, thought she's continuing in directly to the living room. The sight of the show on the television pinches her lips briefly thinner, and she's almost reaching for the remote, but then just lets it keep playing. She's picking up Clint's beer to take a swallow, and then offer it back to him. She's waiting long enough for him to resituate himself but that's all the preamble the men get; she's turned herself to face Clint, but her eyes have cut to Fury as she speaks and signs at once. "Lucien Tessier is dead." Fury sits up, casually tucking away the Colt 1911 he'd conjured from under a cushion. "The hell you doing here," is more of an obligatory grumble than an actual question, but if he had wanted an answer it probably was not this. There's a moment when he evinces no expression at all, and the next moment he's on his feet, voice not raised but more emphatic when he demands, "How?" Clint has been bracing since Nat looked at the screen. Maybe that's why when her revelation comes he just sucks in a sharp breath, takes a swig of beer, and checks his phone. He swipes with one hand, and with the other he signs--also emphatic in its own way, even with his face too preoccupied to non-manually signify--what happened? There's only a beat of pause as Nat considers her answer, and it's delivered carefully neutral when it comes: "Cops are saying drug overdose." Her eyes flick to Clint's phone, and then return to Fury. "I was going to check out the morgue, but I didn't want some paparazzo to be the one to tell you." "There's no way. He ain't been using." Fury sounds uncertain but doggedly insistent, as if being right would change the news somehow. He looks to Clint for help, but doesn't seem to know what to ask and turns right back to Nat. "I'm going with you. Or maybe I should talk to the cops." His eye narrows with sudden suspicion. "Was there anyone else at the house?" Clint is frowning again. He offers Fury no help, just watches the older man speak with intense concentration that belies his habitually affected facility for lipreading. It's only at a small delay that he says, "Cops will give you the runaround, especially at this hour. Best see what Nat turns up first." His lips compress and he glances at his half-drunk beer. "Besides, I've had a few drinks. Probably shouldn't be alone." "The mother and oldest brother were there." Nat is nodding in affirmation to Clint. "Been a madhouse at the home. Doubt the cops will be forthcoming tonight. We could go in the morning and check it out." Her shoulder is hitching in a small shrug. "Body isn't going anywhere." --- <NYC> OCME Mortuary Office - Kip's Bay The morgue never really closes, but the office is closed. Even if it were open, S.H.I.E.L.D. would have no jurisdiction here. None of that would have kept the director and his agents out, and it's an open question whether any of them considered those challenges at all. Probably they are consider some other challenges as they look down at the empty steel rack of the mortuary cabinet that should have held LucienTessier's body (deceased). "Huh." Clint doesn't actually sound either startled or confused, but does have his arms firmly crossed over his chest. He purses his lips, then puffs his cheeks, as if trying out facial contortions in search of one that might be appropriate for this situation. He finally gives up and lapses back into his accustomed expression of neutral disinterest as he turns to Nat. "This is just like that time in Zanzibar." Nat's face has undergone none contortion. Her look at the empty drawer is not quite neutral, just this side of disapproving -- at the empty rack, at the man who should be on it, who is to say. She studies it for a moment as if it might reveal something more, but at Clint's comment she's huffing. Almost amused, though immediately afterward her disapproval deepens just a smidge. "For his sake, let's hope not." She's looking up to Fury, the disapproval now mellowing into just a small nod. "I see why he fascinates you." Fury's expression has been solidly baleful this whole time. His single eye bores into the steel, his gaze so reproachful that anyone subject to it might wish they had inexplicably vanished. Well, not anyone. The man they're looking for, were he found alive, might deign to offer a dry but incisive remark about it. Fury's remark, which seems more of a general observation than a response to Nat's, is neither dry nor incisive -- just a gruff, long-suffering "Son of a bitch."