entrancelogs | mirror event catch-all

Agent Coulson crosses through the mirror to get that sword the moment it's suggested. It promises the sort of power that he's always after and whether he can use that to gain the Queen's favor or for something else, it doesn't really matter.

He's been watching the Coulson on this side of the mirror and biding his time so that he can learn his mannerisms and he's always been a good study. A well-placed smile can un-arm the most unlikely foe and while he's more than capable of fighting, he prefers using his brains.

His first stop is Natasha. She'll be the hardest to trick, but he can fall back on being another version of her friend. He seeks her out, rather than avoid her, because he knows that that would be most suspicious of all.

Natasha's in the dining room, resistance journal open on the table in front of her as she frowns at the warning from Emma and James. This is troublesome - as if the hunt for the sword hadn't tossed them all into chaos around her anyway, but people getting randomly replaced with their mirrors was just going to complicate things further.

When she heard someone step into the room behind her, she automatically flips the book closed to hide the page as she glances up to see who's wandered in. She relaxes a bit when seeing it's Coulson, his purposeful stride telling her here's probably here on a mission.

Apparently she's not the only one who's heard.

"Looking for me?"

"Yeah." He smiles, small but relaxed and easy. The other Phil smiles all the time and these warm smiles come naturally, but for this Phil, it's a practiced thing. He's a spy, after all, and perfect mimicry is a skill he's honed.

Oddly enough mimicking himself has proved more challenging than his past lies.

"How are you doing on this riddle?"

"I haven't been working on it much, admittedly," she confesses with a rueful smile as she shifts to face him, tucking a stray curl behind one ear. "I figured with the rest of them poking away at it, I'd keep an eye on everywhere else. And make sure they don't forget to eat and sleep in the midst of it. What about you?"

"I'd rather try to solve the whole thing than jump in half-cocked." He and the other Coulson have that in common, at least. They both like to have all the facts before they jump into something new.

"When all of this is over, I'm sure they'll all appreciate that you kept them fed and rested." Not that the Coulson of this side is any better, but he would make a comment like that, as if he's the one out of all of them who can work indefinitely because it's worth it. The poor idiot thinks SHIELD is worth it.

"I'm half surprised you're not in there with them," she confesses with a crooked smile, inclining her head and motioning to the chair across from her in invitation, if he felt like taking her up on it. "Or at the very least, hovering helpfully."

"I was, but I'm getting to the point where I think changing perspective might help. Maybe there's a clue around here that I've missed." And he knows that the one thing that rings true between the two of them is that the other Coulson would have done this, too.

"You haven't seen anything, have you?"

"Not yet," she answers with a mild smile, inclining her head. "Then again, I've had a bit of a slow start this morning. I just finished breakfast," she answered, motioning at the table, her arm still tucked securely over the resistance journal.

Except it hadn't been that slow. And she knows Coulson hadn't been in hovering. Yet, anyway. Although it had been in his plans to do so when he wrapped up some other possibilities first. Apparently that's now been interrupted.

"Would you like some help?" she offers instead, because maybe she should be keeping an eye on him now. She had no idea which of her other teammates might have been traded as well, but apparently it was now happening all over the manor. Emma's warning had come just in time.

"Sure." He really doesn't, of course. The longer she's around him, the more likely she is to see through his ruse, because out of everyone from Coulson's world, she's very likely the one with the best eye for subterfuge.

"I was thinking of walking through some of the hedge maze next if you want to join me."

Maybe he can slip away from her there. Surely there will be a need to split up in that thing.

That has her turning a little wary, because it seems an odd place for him to head and immediately has her suspecting what his motives might be. Instead she just frowns, however, tilting her head to the side with a puzzled expression.

"You think there might be a clue out there?"

She was already coming up with a plan and a back-up plan to deal with this. It wasn't something the team had prepared for before now. She was going to have to improvise, but was containing them somewhere and keeping them from searching her best course of action right now?

"I think there's a chance and people are already searching in the other places I've thought of."

Not that he's going to tell her what his real guesses are. He needs that sword. He needs to find it and bring it back to his side, because they deserve it and they'll use it. They need to save their own side. It's not his job to keep these people safe, too.

"And you don't think they'd overlook the places your or I might think to look?" she counters with a hint of a wry smile now as she pushes herself to her feet.

What to do with him? If he was so determined to find the sword, she should probably be interfering in that. She doesn't trust the Queen, not in the least. It makes her reluctant to trust any of the Mirrors as well, especially considering her experiences so far. Which means she had to interrupt the search wherever possible. Even if it meant keeping him from it. Containing him in the maze might work, at least for a little while but she was under no assumption that he wouldn't find his way out of it eventually even then. Its not like they had a wide variety of places to contain someone around here, short of shoving them into a room and breaking the lock. Which was an option as well, she supposed.

"I think some ideas are more obvious than others. Bases seem covered on the obvious guesses and I've been keeping tabs on where at least a few people are looking."

It's so easy to let those words slip out that there's barely a thought to them. Really, this whole thing is tragically easy. Even if she suspects, what's the worst that she would do right now? He's watched them all enough to know what they behave like and he knows the other Phil almost as well as he knows himself.

The only difference is that the other Phil is weak.

They'll have to disagree on that one.

"Why am I not surprised you've been keeping tabs on all of us?" Her lips quirk into a wry semblance of a smirk as she crosses her arms over her chest and tips her head to the side to study him. "Are we so predictable as all that?"

"It's my job to keep tabs on all of you." He gives her a warm smile that is the perfect impression of the Real Phil Coulson, but there's no real warmth behind it. She's a threat and a liability, maybe more than anyone else.

"And I'm not answering that question. I have a self-preservation instinct."

It's a lack she notices right away, because that warmth can't be feigned, especially not by Phil, who seems to possess it so naturally when dealing with his team. His Mirror isn't so good at bluffing, not to someone who knows him well.

"I'm sure the Queen's been very impressed with your work, then," she counters, arching an eyebrow and calling his bluff bluntly. "And I'm doubting that, since you're still here talking to me. Not the wisest course of action, on your part."

Agent Simmons is another risk, but she doesn't know Coulson the way Romanoff does and he's less concerned about her. In solving the riddle, he could use her knowledge. Let it never be said that he doesn't know how to use his assets and she'll be one of them as long as he can keep a measure of trust.

He knocks on her door, warm smile in place that couldn't be distinguished from the real Phil Coulson. He's been practicing.

Simmons feels as if she's barely had time to adjust to this place. Oregon Trail was a bit weird, but it was relatively self-contained. This is almost chaos. She's been waiting, afraid, to see if her mirror was going to take her place. She even started into a mirror in her room, trying to see if she could find any clue, but so far she's still her. Everyone seems to be scrambling to keep tabs and know who's here and who isn't, and Simmons isn't sure who to turn to first.

Though Coulson is high on the list. She answers her door and is relieved to see him.

"Oh, sir. I'd just been about to look for you." She starts to step aside and let him in, when she realizes who he might be, and she frowns. "You are you, aren't you?"

With that practiced warm smile that isn't really his, he looks down at himself in an exaggerated way.

"I still feel like me. What about you?"

The one thing that's stood out to him about the other Coulson is that he's somewhat goofy and he embraces a sort of humor that this Coulson doesn't quite get or care for, but he can present it if needed and how better to prove that he's the right Coulson?

He says it so nonchalantly, as if there isn't anything to be worried about, that Jemma's moment of doubt gets a little stronger before she dismisses it. After Ward, who spent so long in their company and even saved Jemma's life, it's hard to be trusting, even of a familiar face, but Coulson's irreverence seems too normal.

"I haven't been switched," she says, and then she steps back to open the door up for him.

"Has this ever happened before? All these mirrors trading places?"

"From what I understand, it has happened, though not in the time that I've been here."

He steps in with quiet footsteps and doesn't look around, as if this isn't the first time he's been in this room.

"I hope one of our people was switched, at least. It would be a shame to not know what's on the other side."

"Do we not know anything about what's over there?"

Coulson in her space feels more normal than most things in this place, more familiar and more secure. Jemma's feelings of being unsettled start to ease away with him in here now; she must've just been rattled from the experience, and from it being one of the first situation here that feels real, and not just a form of hallucination.

"Not firsthand, but there are others who have been over there. I'd rather get a report from one of our people where possible, though. At least we know that we're all thorough."

He lets his shoulders relax just so and smiles a little more warmly.

"I think for now I want to focus on that riddle. If what everyone has told me is true, we might need that sword."

She supposes that makes sense, and now she wonders what it's like over on that side. Would she volunteer, if that were even possible? Though she supposes that depends on who her Mirror is and what she might be like; it's hard for her to even begin to guess, though she rather hopes that she isn't dreadfully stupid. That would just drag their whole reputation down.

"I'm still not entirely clear on what we ought to expect from the Jabberwocky beyond certain doom. I haven't been able to find more details than that, I'm afraid, and it's not easy to prepare to defend yourself against the dark unknown."

She turns her back on him to start going through some notes on her desk. Any thought that he might not be him is long forgotten by now.

"I wasn't here for it, but from what I hear, some time last year Wonderland was filled with ghosts from the future and visitors from after the Jabberwocky appeared and the basic gist of it was that that monster is going to destroy Wonderland and kill a good number of us if we can't stop it."

This future affected the Mirror side, too, which is why this Coulson genuinely would like to find that sword and stop that monster.

She slows to a stop and straightens up as he explains the situation, and she half looks over her shoulder.

"Oh." That's slightly more upsetting than she'd anticipated, but she tries to push through it and get back to work. As much as she can. "That does sound certain doom-y." Her smile is half-hearted, but she finally comes up with a list of notes that she brings over to him.

"I've done what I could with the riddle, but this isn't really my area of expertise. At the same time, I am a genius, so." You know. She gives a small shrug. "It's a tricky thing to unravel. Everything I've tried has led to a dead end."

"I'm sure you're doing better than I am. I'm trying to pool all of our resources, though. At least from the other SHIELD personnel."

Not that he's sharing what any of them give him with anyone else, but he's gathering all of their intel. It would be stupid not to use every resource at his disposal.

"I figure we have a better shot at finding it if we work together. We don't want it falling into the wrong hands."

"Have any of the others made any progress?"

She takes her folder and sits down, assuming that Coulson knows he can sit down in the other chair if he likes. She rifles through her notes, trying to see if she'd had anything specific she'd wanted to share with him.

"Not much. We've got guesses on a few locations to check out, but nothing concrete that solves the whole riddle."

He half wonders what she'll do if no one solves it, because that seems like a very real possibility right now. They've got some smart people here and none of them seem any closer to cracking it.

"It is frustrating. I like a good riddle and scavenger hunt as much as the next person, but this is rather more serious than competing for a trophy in the Academy."

She gives him a small, amused smile, because surely he remembers those scavenger hunts. They were epic.

Edited 2014-10-21 07:16 (UTC)

mirror event catch-all

Natasha

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Jemma

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