Climbing down the fire escape without people at home having a clue about it felt like Old Times.

Svetlana almost smiled. It had been a while since she sneaked out like that; it reminded her of her teenage years, before... everything else, when she was still a teenage girl who couldn't really decide between punk and goth, sneaking out the back door to go to some party and get really drunk.
Of course, back then, she didn't have to take responsibility for her little sister.
Or a mutation that could wipe out most of a city.
With some help, that is.

It was late in the morning, her adoptive family had gone to work, or shop, or school, or... do whatever, and she was left alone, not having a babysitter to take her outside for a walk. She strangely felt like some pet left in the empty apartment. So, in a moment of foolishness, she decided to take a walk.
Just a short one. Really.
Just around the block.
It was such a nice weather outside.

Of course she did all the precautions. She was wearing gloves, and a light, but long-sleeved blouse, and tights under her miniskirt, and she even had a light scarf wrapped around her head and neck against the sun. The whole picture was complete with sunglasses, in an attempt to make it harder for people to recognize her.
All in all, she looked like a movie star on the run.

Not like she knew many people in NYC who would recognize her.
What were the odds, anyway?

Jamison strolled along, without any real destination in mind. New York was still a puzzle to him, one that he wanted to have all mapped out in his head as soon as possible. He tended to operate well when he knew the lay of the land- where to find the cheapest sandwiches could be found, how far away he was from the nearest hospital at any given moment, major subway stations, etc.

He was making sure to study all of the buildings around, in event that he could see part of one from a street over he would still know the building, that way his landmarks would really be three dimensional. He was visual in that way but this still meant a great deal of looking up, which was how he spotted the girl climbing down the fire escape.

The sight would have been unremarkable except for her curious outfit. She was completely covered, and wearing a scarf. Huge sunglasses completed the picture, making the whole thing seem, well, kinda shady. Which wasn’t meant to be a pun. Those weren’t in Paradox’s style of humor.

Is she a run-away or thief? he wondered. A large sign reading “Iris Clinic”, shed some light on the situation. Probably a crazy person trying to escape the psycho ward of a private clinic, he reasoned. Regardless, he made up his mind to find out. After all, people could provide for interesting landmarks, too.

He crept over quietly until he was standing at the base of the fire escape. The he called loudly and clearly. “And where do you think you’re going?”

>>“And where do you think you’re going?”

Svetlana let out a surprised yelp that was louder than she wanted it to be, and slipped.
Fortunately for her, she was only a few feet above ground now, and managed to grab hold of the railing once again before she fell, so she landed on her feet, staggering a bit.
Thank God I'm not wearing heels.

She was aware of the guy standing in front of her, but seh was very careful not to lean aginst him, or give him the impression that it would be okay to steady her.

It would not be okay.

"Who are you?" she asked, glaring at him for a moment before she realized the sunglasses not only blocked the glare they also made it difficult to see him clearly in the shadows of the alley. She pushed them up onto her forehead and glared again.

"You my babysitter today, or what?"

Jamison hated questions, because then he had to make up answers. Yet, yes or no questions were the worst kind of all for the exact opposite reason. He always had to answer the opposite of what was true. That meant that it could quickly get him into trouble. Like this one.

>>“You my babysitter today, or what?”

He tried hard not to grimace. She expected a babysitter type person to be more reserved than that. “Yes,” he answered levelly. Apparently, he was going to be sticking with this girl for a while.

“Time to head back inside.” He insisted firmly. He assumed that that was what she didn’t want to do, associating her displeasure at seeing him with the fact that she was caught in an escape attempt. “As for me, my name is Markus. Now come on missy. March!”

He felt very drill sergeant for a moment, which made him almost smile. Part of him liked this role, in command. Sure, he’d have to keep on his toes and pretend to know things about this clinic. But that was half the fun of things. Two and a half weeks until the next full moon, I might as well make the most of today… and enjoy meeting people.

>>“Time to head back inside.”

Svetlana stared at the man. He really did look like someone that kid in the labs would assign to babysitting her. How did he know she would be trying to sneak out? Was he a mutant too?
Pretty pink lips arranged themselves into a pretty pout.

>>“As for me, my name is Markus. Now come on missy. March!”

Pretty hands in pretty silken gloves were folded over a pretty chest.

"I not march. They tell me I can go outside if I have a guard. I want to have a walk." she eyed him for a moment "Are you mutant or human? They tell you what I can do?"

In a moment of inspiration, Sveta tilted her head, and the pout tirned into a shy girly smile.

"You don't understand a word when I speak Russian, do you, pretty boy?"

Let's hope not.

She spoke in broken English and then some kind of foreign sounding tongue. And she was cocking her head at him with that smile. That smile that one other women usually meant they were going to try to manipulate him. And she claimed to have some kind of power- referring to mutants and her ability to “do” something. Perhaps it made her dangerous as well as mad.

“Cut out that gibber-babble,” he ordered. He felt so alive playing this part. It felt really right. He’d never had so much energy or focus. ‘Marcus’ knew his next move. He had to bodily escort her back into the building. He was some kind of caretaker, and really, it was for her own good to be back inside.

But when he turned back to look at her, her face was confusing. She seemed confident and sure of herself. There were no strange squiggly lines that usually came along with madness. So why was she in this institution?

He ignored his own questions. They were unimportant to the role he was playing. “Let’s go.” He grabbed her by the elbow, gently and started leading her towards the door.

Whoa. The new babysitter was bossy. And he apparently didn't like his ward sneaking out and trying to escape. There was some truth somewhere in there, if she had to look after a dangerous mutant and found out she almost escaped, she would have acted the same too.
Still.

"Screw you." she elaborated in her mother tongue, complete with a sweet smile, since he didn't seem to understand a word of Russian at all.

And then he touched her.
He. Touched. Her.

Sveta yelped, and jumped back, yanking her arm out of his grasp. It couldn't have lasted more than a few senconds, and he only touched her through clothes... but still. The girl stared at him with wide eyes, waiting for the man to burst into flames, or shift into a dragon, or drop dead, or something of the sort.

"Vatareyou doing?!" she yelled, more frightened than angry. "... Are you okay?..."

The girl yelped and jumped back- obviously she was more skittish than he’d originally assessed. Or… perhaps there was another explanation? For a moment, out of the corner of his eye, he’d thought he’d seen something. Like a flash of color or the corner of a painting. Jamison was used to such flashes caused by seeing other people’s emotions and had trained himself not to jump when he caught them out of the corner of his eye. But this time it was different and yet the same.

The picture was more vivid and much less abstract than he’d ever seen before. The glimpse he’d caught was enough to make him know that she was toying with him and was actually speaking a coherent language, not crazy psycho-babble. He saw snow and a strange alphabet and shards of darkness.

But as soon as he’d turned, everything vanished.

>>"Vatareyou doing?!... Are you okay?...” she yelled at him.

Huh, those two expressions seem hard to reconcile… what was she expecting to happen? He was fine, nothing wrong at all that he could tell. His face tingled a little, but that was normal for him. Except, maybe there was a way for him to use this to his advantage? It was a clinic, after all. He now had two objectives: 1. get her back inside, and 2. find out what she normally made happen when people touched her.

“Uhh…” he pointed to his head, “I think I’ll need some ice. Or asprin or something. I have this strange headache all of a sudden…” And she had opened the window for the next one: “What do you do, any way?”

>>“Uhh… I think I’ll need some ice. Or asprin or something. I have this strange headache all of a sudden…”

Sveta's eyes narrowed as she looked at the guy. If he really was her designated babysitter, he was not a very well informed one. Maybe he was just not that smart. It was easy to imagine that weird leader of theirs would have problems picking useful people to work for him. Blah.

>> “What do you do, any way?”

Definitely not well informed. Did he miss the briefing or something?

"I boost mutant powers." she summarized, folding her arms "You touch me, and your powers go boom." she elaborated, glancing towards the doors of the clinic. She really had no choice. Hurting another guy who got near her, it wouldn't look good on her record.

"I take you inside, but you promise not to catch fire or... stuff, okay?" she looked up at him "Vat do you do, anyway?"

This is ridiculous. He is supposed to be the one taking care of me. Not the other way around...

Power boosting, huh? Is that what that was?

“There aren’t any open flames in awkward places, are there?” he laughed, a genuine sort of laugh as they headed inside. It was less hospital-y than he thought it would be, but then again, he’d never really been in a clinic like this and was kind of fuzzy on how they were technically different from a hospital. Anyway, the entrance area was homey and inviting, at least. To make the patients want to stay, perhaps? But if that’s the goal, it obviously isn’t working very well.

“Do? Well I’m a bouncer at a bar downtown,” he lied smoothly, trying to say ‘so don’t try anything’. He hoped that would give enough credence to him being ‘called in’ to come look after her. It also made clear his complete and utter lack of medical knowledge. In case of emergency, he’d definitely ring a nurse or somebody who actually worked there.

“Why are you here, anyway? If that’s all you do?”

>>“Do? Well I’m a bouncer at a bar downtown,”

Sveta arched an eyebrow at the guy. She could believe that. Still, did they really just hire a bouncer to look after her?! What was she, some kind of a criminal?
Also. He wasn't even a mutant. Great. All the better, considering that he had just touched her.
But then, why did he have a headache all of a sudden?

>>“Why are you here, anyway? If that’s all you do?”

Sveta smiked. A slow one, this bouncer guy was.

"People babysit me to make sure I not boost other mutant by accident" she explained patiently "Mutants with dangerous powers. It can end very badly for the city." she frowned. She didn't elaborate. If he was smart enough to connect the dots to the neural bomb, so be it. He was hired to do this job anyway.

"I am not in a hospital because I am sick." she added, with dignity "I live here in the apartments."

Just so you know.

He blinked in surprise. Finally some truth, as indicated by her orange righteous indignation, though he wasn’t really expecting her to say that she lived at the place. “So if you live here, why were you sneaking out like that?”

He recognized that he probably sounded too friendly and curious, so he added, “Why didn’t you wait for me to escort you wherever you wanted to go?”

Much better. That made him less like some kind of police officer, impersonal and uncaring, and more like someone she could rely on and confide in- in an official capacity, of course. That was what she was looking for and expecting, wasn’t it? He watched carefully as she thought over this latest query, just in case he needed to revise his behavior and strategies in dealing with her. He was also guided by a very important question: “What would Marcus do?”

>>“Why didn’t you wait for me to escort you wherever you wanted to go?”

There we go.

Sveta rolled her eyes.

"I get tired of waiting." she shrugged "To sneak out is fun, is it not?" she added with a playful smirk "I don't get much fun, most of the time. I am sorry. You want to do your job right." she sighed, looking at Marcus "Next time, I wait. Now."

She graced the man with her most charming smile and head tilt.

"You want to escort me somewhere?"

Jamison realized, with that little look and too-innocent smile that he'd really stepped in it this time. If he was a blushing-when-he-got-embarrassed kind of guy, his face would be bright red about now. Fortunately, he wasn't.

“Only if you want to go somewhere, miss.” Which was code for no. No, absolutely not. Marcus even would say no. But let her think that he was untrained and unprepared for this whole watching her gig. He was pretty sure that even if she did want to go somewhere, he could handle her. Or at the very least he could keep everyone else away from her.

Truthfully, Paradox felt kind of sorry for her, locked up all day. He could empathize in some ways. And in others, he knew the value of complete unhindered freedom.

>>“Only if you want to go somewhere, miss.”

Sveta took the sunglasses off together with the shawl, and put them away; she didn't need to go incognito now that she had her guard, and she didn't want to look like a Hollywood star just out of rehab. She flashed another charming smile ar Marcus.

"That's good" she nodded "I just want to take a walk. I promise we not go far, okay?"

And with that, she'd already walked out the door into the sunlight with a smile. A walk was always nice. And the good weather almost made her forget she had a guard following her around.
Talking about said guard...

"You not have to follow after me or anything" she said, looking back at him over he shoulder. She waited for him to walk next to her, as if they were just two people talking, without one looking after the other.

"So, Slate send you too?" she asked him, deciding she might as well get to know the guy since he was hired to babysit her "Why do you take a job like this?"