Template:Featured Articles/8-2024
"Liam helped you find people to shoot, and this has upset him. I am upset he is upset. Knowing that this is your job and you did not tell me, this has upset me also." The tip of her tail twitched stiffly. "I have many emotions. All of these I dislike." Darcy nodded, fingers worrying at the edge of the blanket between her fingertips. It was exactly what she'd suspected, then, and she was quiet for a few minutes as she determined the order to tackle these disliked things in. "Yes, it's part of my job now. For security reasons, I don't typically go into detail of what Snow Valley does outside of what you can find on the website unless there's an actual need. It's easier to just not talk about that part of things, keep a little bit of my life and work separate in a way that can be frustratingly hard to do when you share a house with so many people." She shrugged. "It wasn't a personal slight against you, and now that you know I'd be willing to answer questions as long as they don't compromise the work we're doing." This response was given due consideration. Cautiously, Sharon settled down on the carpet with her hands curled in front of her, sphinx-like. "If work commonly involves sniping aggressors from rooftops such concerns are logical," she said, extremely grudgingly. "But confusion persists. You will explain this job, please." Darcy let out a short bark of laughter. "We typically handle intelligence gathering and covert ops, and more of the international networking. Basically the things that the X-Men can't be caught doing but are necessary. Sometimes that just means we infiltrate a group and dismantle them through mostly legal means. Other times it means we shoot someone. Sniping into a crowd like that is rare and generally ill-advised, but we were short on time, separated, and full on armed, angry enemies attacking our people." Darcy picked up Toothless from stomping on Lightning McQueen, depositing the kitten into her lap and dangling fingers in front of tiny paws. "And that brings us to Liam. A young, visible mutant with limited self-defense training that I'm aware of, separated from the rest of you in the crush of bodies. He got sent to the rooftop for two reasons: I needed a spotter, and he needed to be out of the crowd. He could've said no. Part of me wishes he had, but–" She took a deep breath, the what ifs that haunted her nights rattling around in her brain, and looked Sharon in the eye. "If he had told me no, I would've respected it. Respected him. Had him do something else. But there are shots I would've missed, and it's very possible that you and Terry, at minimum, wouldn't be here right now. Plus a handful of people in the district that I'm aware of only in passing, or from seeing them being menaced through my scope that day. And I will take Liam's understandable upset for being in that situation, and your upset for that, my own upset for taking that bit of innocence away, and anyone else's upset for any of that in exchange for the fact that I can still see you in front of me, alive and whole and safe. It might make me a monster, and if so that's a truth about myself I'll have to live with, but I will because the rest of you are still here to remind me of why I chose this life. At the end of the day, that's the most important thing to me. You're upset at me, rightfully so, but you're alive and well to do it." |
