ms_legendary | [For Karen] Waving Guns

My name is Nikita. Seven years ago, I was taken off Death Row by an elite covert unit of the U.S. Government called Division. They trained me to be an assassin, called it a new life and a chance to serve the country I'd wronged, but they lost their way and I escaped. For almost four years, I've been fighting to dismantle Division, to protect the innocent people of the world from the horrible things it did, horrible things I did for them. I haven't been alone...until now.

Bucky's not dead, but he's a mess and Jason's worse. Not physically worse. His head's healing fine. He's young, he's strong. He'll live. But his heart's in such a black place right now, it hurts to look at him. It's like walking across obsidian shards. Nikita knows what it's like. She's been there.

She's been meeting him in the Compound, because it's good for him to be around other people. It's good for both of them. And she's glad for the company, glad to have someone she can trust, but the problem is, she can't really trust him like this. Not when he's wired tight as a time bomb, ready to explode. It's going to take time for him to recover from what happened to Bucky and she's been stationary too long already.

No one's attacking her, there've been no attempts to get into the hut she's staked out, no one's trying to penetrate the Nina LaFleur I.D. not that they could. As far as she can tell, this island's not networked to any of the alphabet soup databases. She's as far off the grid as she's ever been. If she's still alive. If this isn't a dream. If she's not going insane.

Stick with what you know, Nikita. Michael's voice is strong and steadying in her mind. It should be a comfort but it makes her want to get high more than she's wanted it in years. She won't, even though there are ways, but her teeth are floating with the urge. She shakes it off and goes to the kitchen for something to eat and some tea instead. Dealing with physical needs, that's always a good way to stay grounded. And cooking will give her something to think about that isn't whether Michael and her other allies are dead.

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Dealing with the duties she had didn't really take much out of Karen -- not the way a full day's work used to -- but she still happily collapses in a seat in the kitchen. On top of a slow day in the boutique and council office, she'd been taking the three dogs everywhere with her. Utica was calm as always and Styles seemed to still miss Archie and William, but Matthews was still a young enough puppy that he needed a leash and constant watching.

It made her miss Robin and her dog-whispering.

"Stay," she told Utica and Styles, and looped Matthews' leash around the chair before getting up again to head over to the fridge.

She gave the woman already cooking a smile as she passed. "Hi. What're you making?"

Nikita hears the dogs before the woman. Their panting and claws, the unfamiliar sounds draw her up, alert. She has little experience of dogs, except for cadaver and drug searches. Her shoulders have tensed, but relax by the time the woman speaks. She's pretty, in a homespun fashion that dresses up very well, but her manner shows not even a single trace of vigilance. If she's an agent of any kind, she's a very very good actress.

"Hello. You startled me," Nikita offers apologetically, immediately falling into the role she's crafted for herself: a slightly shell-shocked conflict journalist. With a little laugh, she gestures to her cutting board. "I think I'm making ratatouille. It might end up a stirfry if I get tired of chopping."

"Didn't mean to startle you, sorry about that," Karen apologized. The woman had a new face, something Karen had grown to notice after years on the island. It was the ones that stayed for longer than a few months that stuck in her mind; anyone she didn't recognize qualified as a newbie.

And the woman certainly seemed to act like one, even if she'd made herself comfortable in the kitchen.

She returned the smile and took a closer look. "Nice. The most I can hope for when I come into the kitchen is a snack or leftovers. Cooking and I don't exactly get along."

"It's all right," Nikita replies, letting herself relax even more without obscuring that she's working at it. It works with the cover. "I startle easily these days. It's not your fault. Or theirs," she adds with a nod for the dogs.

"You're welcome to some of whatever I end up making, if you don't mind the lack of meat. I can't promise it'll be very good, but it'll be healthy, anyway."

"I...would actually really appreciate that," Karen said, unable to do anything but give in when faced with food she didn't have to cook. She settled into a seat, scooping up Matthews when he came close. "So, sorry if it sounds weird, but you're new, right? You've got a total island newbie quality to you."

Not even the burst of perceptiveness shakes Nikita's conviction this woman isn't an agent for anyone after Nikita. It's not that it would be impossible, so much as she hasn't twigged even a single one of Nikita's myriad mental alarms. That alone leaves her smiling a little crookedly (almost everyone twigs at least one).

She shrugs as she contemplates the vegetables like there are answers or comfort on the cutting board. It's the knife that's the comfort, and not the one in her hand, although that one's comforting too, a weapon if she needs it. The tomatoes look good enough, she decides, to make a ratatouille with and waiting for it to cook down is something to do. She draws several of them to center of the board, and then looks up again, shadows not quite chasing the smile out of her eyes.

"What gave me away?"

"You're a new face," Karen answered, getting comfortable in her seat. She leaned forward slightly to let Matthews lick her cheek. "I've been around here for long enough that new people stick out."

Perfectly innocuous. A long term resident greeting a new neighbor. If it weren't for having been kidnapped here against her will, it could be suburban anywhere America. Nikita smiles, a little wry, and gestures to the orange dress and gold sandals. "I thought it might be my unusual taste in cooking clothes." She's making fun of herself, like Nina might and Nikita never would. It's friendly.

"Unusual, but I like it," Karen said. "It would actually fit right in over at the Island Boutique. Have you heard of it?"

"Yes, sure. It's a good idea. Although--" Nikita smooths her hand over the dress. "I don't think I'm ready to get rid of it. Vanity, but I'm used to having a closet full of choices for soirees," said complete with mocking accent. "I was going to go tonight but I--" A shrug, a glance at the knife in her hand. "Really wasn't in the mood."

"Oh, I totally get it. Believe me, way back when I first got here, I think I cried in joy when I got a plain black t-shirt. And the occasional evening gown." Karen shifted gently to make Matthews as comfortable as possible as he settled in her lap. "You should stop by, see what we have, at least."

"A plain black t-shirt would be phenomenal," Nikita agrees and finds the relaxation she forced onto herself isn't so forced anymore. The woman's pleasant, easy to talk to, not asking any hard questions, sharing more of herself than she's asking of Nikita. All good signs, all safety signals. "I get mostly evening wear and lingerie. Like it has some sort of vendetta against giving me anything useful for the climate." Like it's tormenting her with memories of herself and Michael.

But Nikita shoves that away and smiles. "What do you think, ratatouille or stir fry? Stir fry has the advantage of being faster..."

"I got pants suits my first couple of weeks here, so I know exactly how that is." The boutique had been Pepper's idea, but Karen got more joy out of it now than she ever thought she would have. It was like selling paper, but a million times more fun and less work. So, not like selling paper at all.

"Stir fry sounds good, but honestly, I could go for anything right now."

"Stir fry it is," Nikita decides almost cheerfully. This is probably the most normal thing she's done since she got here. Also the most abnormal, for her, since having time to cook, and being dressed up to do it, which might imply a special at-home date with Michael which... isn't something she wants to think about.

"So--" Nikita quirks a little completely innocent grin at her as she turns up the heat and puts the pan on the stove. Oil after it's hot, she can hear Michael and Owen reminding her. "If we're going to share dinner, it might be good to get your name? I'm Nina." Safer that way for both of them.

"Oh!" Forgetting manners was never one of Karen's problems. She blamed it on the dogs, who happened to be very decent scapegoats when she needed them. "Sorry, I'm Karen Filippelli. Uh, council member."

There isn't even a flicker of acknowledgment from Nikita when she hears 'council member', but her heart pings with a hint of triumph and of trepidation. Karen Filippelli isn't a spy; Nikita would risk her life on that assessment, but she's very close to the official channels of power on this island. Finally, someone who might be able to tell her something.

"Nina LaFleur. Ex-investigative journalist." She smiles and settles into a lean against the counter. Something flickers just beyond her field of vision, in the hall leading to the kitchen, just as she does, and instantly her body shifts into flight mode, although she keeps it out of her voice and off her face. "So, Miss Filippelli," she says, sounding like the journalist she's supposed to be. "How does someone become a council member on an island of multi-verse exiles?"

Karen's eyebrows rose at the journalist part, but after seeing William de Worde in action for the last few years -- and being at his mercy as a council member more recently, she knew to at least expect lots of questions. And journalist or not, it was something that came from almost all new islanders.

"Uh, we have two different types of seats," Karen explained. "There are members the islanders vote in, and there are members elected to represent various professions. Like the lab, or the clinic, or, in my case, arts, media and commerce."

"Are there residency requirements? Term limits? Who can vote?" Nikita rattles off as though she's interested in the answers. She is, in the sense that more data is always better than less. What Karen has to tell her about the council, even if they're even bigger patsies than Oversight is for Percy, maybe she can use it.

Right now, her primary focus is on the shadows in the hall. The distinctive shadows and quiet movements of agents acquiring a target at leisure. She moves 'at leisure', avoiding the laser siting with regular kitchen movements, like dropping the spatula that she bends down to grab - and pull her knife at the same time.

"Oh shoot. I'm going to have to wash this. Karen, would you mind ducking into the pantry to see if there's any cumin or anything in there?" Unrelated items, but Karen doesn't know her to judge whether that's strange or not. And if Karen goes in the pantry, Nikita can take out whoever's out there before they can hurt her.