Philip and Lydia, backdated to Wednesday Afternoon

[om_panax]

Lydia interrupts Philip's obsessing to add her own obsessions to his list. Idea exchange goodness ensues!

Lydia clacked down the boy's hallway effortlessly on five-inch platform heels until she reached Agent's door. She couldn't remember who he lived with, but she somehow doubted whoever it was would mind a girl knocking (be surprised, possibly, but not angry). She rapped crisply, though the door hung open a touch already, and waited

Philip was too hard to pin down after classes and squad work, so she'd just decided to do it the old fashioned way and pay him a visit.

People coming and going had become common enough over the last few weeks that Philip didn't bother getting up when there was a knock anymore. Instead, he just hit the save and looked up. "Come in," he said and if he sounded a bit tired, well, sleep wasn't often on the agenda.

Lydia took the invitation readily, clutching her iPad beneath one arm but otherwise it was just her and her little plaid skirt. She glanced first at Philip--who was looking worn, as usual these days--then around Philip's room--more like a War Room, but somehow she was not surprised--and asked, "How goes the battle?"

"Coming closer to a grinding halt," Philip said sourly. "I'm rapidly reaching the end of my resources and the ones out canvasing the area haven't found much new either."

Lydia allowed a twitch of a frown to show as she came to lean against Philip's desk. "It's been long enough I can't imagine there's much to be found from the same information. Something has to show up eventually..."

No one was perfect, but whoever had done this was at least prepared. Lydia hoped to god it wasn't too late when some kind of fuck up was finally discovered.

"That's the problem," Philip said as he leaned back in his chair with a worn out thump. "There should be more to find, even if they were professionals. There's always something, and I just don't have the resources to figure it out."

And that, right there, told Lydia more about Philip Coulson than any conversation or squad practice ever had. She cocked her head slightly, tucking a stray loose curl behind one ear. "If the headmasters don't--and I suppose we have to assume they want to--I'm not surprised we can't access them, either. That said, there's no reason to stop trying. Whoever did it will fuck up. Or already did."

"It's taking advantage of it," Philip said as he looked back up at her. "If we don't have a where or when, how're we supposed to use that?"

"There's no way to answer that until we know what it is," Lydia pointed out, but gently. She was telling him things he already knew, but it wasn't a useless conversation. She recognized that frustration, and she didn't blame him, or Scott, or anyone feeling it right now. Who knew what talking about it could jar loose, when someone had been staring at the same information for so long and making no progress. "You and Laura, you trained together outside the squad, right?"

"Often, yes," Philip said with a nod. He rubbed a hand over one bicep absently, all of the bruises from their sessions had long since faded. "Off the books, as it were. Nothing that we were doing was likely to be approved, which was the point."

"I'm sorry," Lydia said, genuinely (gaze lingering on Philips bicep because, well, he'd been a little more disheveled than usual, lately, and it suited him). It was difficult to imagine Laura having friends... and yet, not at all. For all her trolling (and oh, Lydia was convinced that her squad-mate had in fact been trolling her--at least, in the end), Laura was straightforward and honest and helpful. "I don't think it's irrational to keep hoping, though. Even this late in the game."

"For what it's worth, I don't think it's irrational either. There are too many atypical details for it to be a regular kidnapping, if it was, we'd be looking at an entirely different response," Philip said. That was the problem with fatigue, he was starting to realize, the mouth filter was a bit more difficult to maintain. "I'm just hoping we find them before there's too much damage done."

Laura was already damaged, that much Lydia knew--the girl was like a wildcat sometimes--but Lydia didn't make the mistake of writing her off as just a wildcat. If anyone could remain intact through an "atypical" kidnapping, it would probably be her. River Tam, on the other hand, was, what, thirteen? Lydia didn't know her, but she understood her to be remarkably smart, even moreso than her genius brother. Intelligence didn't always come with increased sensitivity, but...

She allowed a troubled expression to darken her features for just a moment before shaking it off. "Me, too. If you think of anything I can do, let me know. I parsed a lot of data in the first week, but now it seems more like surveillance and searching new avenues is pretty covered."

"Anything you can add, I'd appreciate it. I'm not the only one working on it but mine seems to be the most..." he glanced around the room. "The most physical, I suppose. I'm trying to make it easy for others to add as they see fit. It can make for interesting results if you get lucky."

"Absolutely." Lydia eyed his setup, now, taking in the maps and graphs a little more closely. "I've seen Scott with his face in his computer for weeks now." Albeit not recently, but, well, that was another story. "And Tessa and Pietro live in the library as much as Arthur, these days. Haven't seen Simon in the lab in... forever. Poor guy.

"I'll ask around and see if anyone needs me. Just been working on our PR project, in the meantime. Anyone mention that to you?"

"If they have, I've forgotten, I'm sorry," Philip said sheepishly. "I wouldn't ordinarily but, well..." he waved at the room by way of explanation.

Lydia smiled, far less smirkily than usual, again. "Basically we've taken a metric shit-ton of data and run a Market Response Model analysis, predicting different potential behaviors for our inevitable coming out party. We're past that now and working on potential responses. Seemed like a thing you might like to know."

Well that got his attention immediately. "Interesting," Philip said, looking much more focused. "I assume you're using a civilian model? Healers in hospitals, etc, etc?" he asked. It had paralleled some of his own thoughts, though his were canted in a very different direction.

"Effectively," she agreed with a nod. "Though the healer thing, I'm thinking that might need to stay on the backburner, as it has higher freakout potential." Which Lydia realized was cold, of course. When you could save lives, to not save them was... morally gray at best. But her priorities were what they were.

"We were starting with ideas for other sorts of volunteering that might prove just how useful we are to have around first. Search and rescue, disaster clean-up, possibly even emergency response, though there's a huge public accountability issue with that last one, but we can cross that bridge when we come to it."

There was more, of course, but she'd wait to hear Philip's thoughts on that, first.

Philip nodded as he listened, interestingly enough, they'd thought much the same thing, just in slightly different directions. "Those are all good, and the more visible the better. You'd want to spin it, I think, so that the people in question are more valuable as independents or corporate employees than working for the various agencies, at least until the presence is firmly established."

After all, just because his career path hadn't changed, that didn't mean he trusted most agencies. Look at his grandparents.

She made a thoughtful face, cocking her head a little. "I like that; I hadn't thought of either option, really, but I had thought it best to keep everyone sort of centrally organized from here. Saves them getting used by anyone, keeps their loyalty to each other."

"And it keeps people from being scooped up as 'assets' and vanishing if their presence is big enough. Or being dragooned into service for reasons of 'national security'." And he was tired enough that he couldn't quite keep the derisive tone out of his voice.

"Not that I object to security," he amended. "I object to sloppy and stupid being involved."

"I think some scooping up of mutants for national security will be inevitable--if it hasn't already--" Lydia paused, cocking her head. Of course she hadn't missed the change in his tone. And she knew his father worked for the government somehow. She could connect dots into something vague that was enough. It hardly meant inside information, but she had long since decided Philip was up to more than anyone knew--and he wasn't the only one around here. "Has it already happened? Do we know anything?"

"What?" Philip blinked at Lydia for a second and had to try to remember what he'd just said. "Nothing that Tessa or I have turned up has said that they have, but that doesn't mean anything. I mean, just look at what's on public record out there, like all the insanity that the CIA tried back around Cuba and the Cold War after. The only thing I can tell you that this open and transparent thing they go on about these days is likely trash. I'd bet that they've just gotten a lot better at burying the sketchy stuff."

"Sorry," he said and if the smile was a little self-deprecating, it was at least genuine. "Dad wasn't even involved in anything too sensitive, as far as I know, but he made me a little paranoid."

Lydia's eyebrows had gone up quite a bit, but that wasn't to say she disapproved. Or was at all bored. Oh yes, plenty going on behind Philip Coulson's neat little sweaters--and not just the fabulous body. "We're lucky he did, then--so long as you can still occasionally sleep at night."

"It wasn't that bad," Philip clarified, and he actually rolled his eyes at that. "We just played a lot of what-if games, I have no idea if any of it was true. It'd defeat the purpose of a secret job if you're giving all your details to a kid."

And every word of that was the truth. Not the entire story, but it was still the truth. The potential nightmare causing stuff had come from the other members of his family.

"It is possible that your particular brand of upbringing gave you a higher tolerance," Lydia pointed out with a little smirk. 'What-if games' of that kind might even have given her nightmares--but somehow she was not surprised to hear any of this, though it was entirely new and interesting information. "But it certainly prepared you for today." She glanced around the room again. "Our entire life is a huge 'what-if' game. And unfortunately we don't have enough data to predict most of it, mathematically speaking."

"We'd need a department for that, honestly," Philip said with a sigh and rubbed a hand over his face. "A department and more specialized software and even that wouldn't be any guarantee. People have an amazing capacity to jump in just the wrong direction when you aren't expecting it."

"It's just a multiple linear regression; the software thing is a scam if you can do the math," Lydia said. "That's how we started our PR approaches--Market Response Modeling analysis.

"But semi-relevant data was more readily available" --thanks to a little corporate espionage-- "We would need a department just to gather enough data to even make it viable." She sighed too, leaning more heavily against the desk. "And either way, it's true: you can predict a group, but not individuals."

"And hence the migraine that I've had for almost a month," Philip said sourly. "As there are cases where one individual does something so utterly unpredictable that it throws every projection you have in the trash."

"My job is certainly easier," Lydia agreed. That was rarely the case with PR--it was certainly the case with intelligence. "The other thing we were thinking of--eventually--is high profile mutants potentially coming out. Nothing says 'we're just like you' like saying 'you want to be us'."

"Mmm, cautiously though, I think," Philip said after a moment. "Just think about what's been happening in the news with wealth and add another unobtainable layer. Not that I think it's a bad idea," he added, "Just one that needs some care?"

"Absolutely--another thing it's good to have centralized from here. People will want to do it their own way, but some things will have to be agreed-upon." Not so much treading on them, simply, well, ensuring the safety of all involved parties. Yes, Lydia would just stick with that. "The good news is that most of those types have experience dealing with the kind of backlash you're talking about. Some of them their whole lives." Braddocks, Shaws, this house was crawling with trust fund mutants, after all.

Philip nodded, he'd done a little looking into backgrounds, obviously. Some of these kids had been more guarded than he was, odd though that may be. "As much as I dislike putting someone in the spotlight who doesn't want to be, highlighting a case like Kevin's might be a good idea. Just because someone is a mutant, that doesn't mean a good thing, in the combating the inevitable envy. And then there are those of us who's issue is functionally useless and has no impact on their daily life."

"We might be able to get someone in a similar situation to volunteer, if Kevin won't." Lydia said thoughtfully; Kevin wasn't the only one whose mutation might be considered a 'handicap' by conventional standards. She might have to sound Josh out on that, since she didn't know his sulky boyfriend personally. "And of course there's the obvious freakout potential in someone with death touch. We need a system to weigh mutations on the basis of potential freakouts, really."

She flipped open her iPad and made a note quickly.

"Meanwhile, I'll be looking further into how we can deal with the lunatics like that preacher out west," Philip said sourly. "You're always going to have that sort popping up, the trick is to make them look ridiculous so not one pays attention to them."

"Arthur's working on a lot of damage control type solutions while Warren and I are focusing a little more on bringing the middle-of-the-road to our side and capitalizing on the positive." Lydia blew upward, sending hair flying. "Poor guy has his work cut out for him, with that Stryker bastard."

"Mmm. I suppose it would be unkind of me to say that I hope his brakes would go out at an inopportune time," Philip said dryly.

"Unkind, maybe, but accurate." Lydia huffed out something near to a very dry laugh. Then paused. "There is one more thing. I'm not sure if Scott said anything to you--about what happened to me back home?"

"Not that I remember specifically," Philip said with a frown. "If he did, I can't remember right now, I'm sorry."

"He probably didn't; it's not completely relevant to the current situation, probably more something to look into afterwards." The more she thought about it, the more Lydia decided it wasn't related--the odds were just far too slim. But it still bore discussion, and yeah... she could tell Philip.

Though she did take a noticeably deep breath before she started--out of character, at least, for her facade, but there it was: "Before I came here, some kind of psi tried to mind control me--and mostly failed. My immunity kept them out, but they were so strong and persistant it caused a kind of allergic reaction; it made me hallucinate. I don't know who did it or why--Xavier got me out shortly after, though the attempts lingered even after the, ah... larger issue.

"Once we have our people back, I'd like to start trying to find out what, exactly, happened."

"You don't know that it isn't relevant though," Philip said as Lydia finished. "There are too many unknowns out there. With as many telepaths as there are here, it would stand to reason that there is a larger population out there. Whoever that was could be related to that Facility, they could be in government employ, they could be an independent or associated with a fringe group."

He twisted in his seat and rapidly typed a reminder note to himself about it. "I'll certainly help in whatever way I can."

Lydia bit down on her tongue before she could say that she told others, who were also looking into potential relevance, but let it die. She could use his help; no point setting him off, as exhausted as he clearly was, right now. And really... so was she. The truth was, it was, "Appreciated.

"Those were my initial thoughts on the subject. I can send you details to check out this evening, if you like."

"That would be great, thank you. Maybe looking at something else will give me a better perspective on this mess." He could hope, at least. "I appreciate you trusting me with the task."

Because Philip did. He understood the want or need to keep things under wraps.