whenshewasnice | Natalie's Office, The Hegemony Compound, Brazil, Saturday

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Natalie's Office, The Hegemony Compound, Brazil, Saturday

Of all the strange things Natalie had experienced in her life in recent times, this was the most pleasant one. It was a surreal experience to have her parents in her office, but not a bad one. Her father had immediately taken to examining the few books she had on the shelf (fairly old fashioned for this time period, but she'd wanted her office to feel comfortable for her), while her mother was far more interested in the electronics. If someone had asked Natalie beforehand what would happen once they got here, she would've gotten in exactly right. Sometimes, predictability was comforting.

"So this is where I work," she told them. "While I'm not hounding Peter across the hall."

Her father looked back towards her. Teasing was clearly incoming. "Does he need a lot of hounding?"

"Only sometimes." A beat. "Mostly for things that don't have much to do with our work. Sleep. Food. Those kinds of inconsequential things."

Her mother gave a quiet, dry snort. Yeah, these were Adamses, all right.

[ooc: NFB, and mainly for the people already in Brazil, but can also be open for calls and texts and whatever. SP warning for tonight.]

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Peter knocked on the door with audible annoyance. "Nat!" he called.

"And just in time," Natalie noted dryly, glancing at the door. She didn't make a move towards it, though.

Her father did. And that was how Peter was greeted at the door by a tall blonde man in his late thirties, with an exaggerated solemn expression on his face. "Yes?"

And here Peter had hoped to catch just Natalie so he could warn her of the impending Parentpocalypse brewing in his own parents' heads.

Instead, his face shifted to 'professional and charming' immediately. "I take it you're Mr. Adams?" he said pleasantly. "Hello."

"That is correct," Natalie's father replied with a little nod, only looking a tiny bit amused at the shift in tone that the opening of the door had produced. (It was not unlike the expression Natalie wore sometimes.) "Dominic Adams," he added, as he stuck out his hand for a shake. "Nice to meet you at long last."

"It's a pleasure to meet you as well," Peter said, giving Mr. Adams' hand a firm shake. "Welcome to the Hegemony Compound. I hope Ribeirao Preto airport security's treated you well."

"It was adequate," said Natalie's mother, straightening up from where she'd been inspecting... something or other. Peter was getting the same kind of appraising look. "But made better by the novelty of this being a different time and universe."

It was pretty great to have family who wouldn't freak out over that. "What Mom means," Natalie noted, "is that it was fine."

Peter stepped past Dominic, into the room, so he could offer Mrs. Adams a hand as well. "I'm glad to hear it," he said. "Both that it was adequate and that there's some novelty to our small enterprise here."

"'Small enterprise'?" she repeated with a vaguely familiar uptick of one eyebrow, as she took his hand. Her handshake was firm and professional, like someone who'd had to do it a lot over her career. "That's being quite modest, isn't it, Mr. Hegemon?"

"It depends on who you ask," Peter said vaguely.

He let go of Mrs. Adams' hand and smiled. "My parents have threatened to visit you soon," he said, "I came by to offer some fair warning to Natalie."

Who was enough of a politician not to make any faces at that. Or she'd just made peace with the fact that their parents would be meeting and was getting on with things. "Well, I could have guessed that," she said. "We don't get a lot of personal visitors. It's natural Theresa and John Paul would jump at the opportunity."

"And of course we're curious to see the couple who produced such an exceptional young man," Dominic added, because he couldn't help himself. "Natalie wouldn't have been convinced to move across the multiverse for just anyone."

"My parents may have their own opinions about that," Peter said wryly, with enough amusement that the only one who'd be able to detect anything bitter behind it at all would be Natalie. "Has she given you the tour yet?"

"Not very extensively," Abigail said.

Natalie added a shake of her head of her own. "I thought I'd start with the business side and move on to the more personal places from here."

"Well, this is most certainly your daughter's business side," Peter said, spreading out his arms. "She had her pick of the nicest executive offices we had to offer, which I thought was only fair."

"And here I thought I just picked whatever was closest to you," Natalie retorted lightly. For her. Her father gave her a look. "It's certainly nicer than mine," he said.

Abigail looked faintly amused. "Could that be because you just let yours stay messier?"

(None of them were actually messy by anyone's else's standards.)

(No, Jace, your standards still didn't count because they were insane.)

"Anyway," Natalie cut them off, "this office has worked nicely for me so far."

"She's done a grand job of intimidating dignitaries," Peter said, grinning. "It's that stark neatness working for her."

"And was it this neat office, or yours, that Mr. de Flandres commandeered during his coup?"

Dropping unexpected, sharp questions with a deceptively mild tone? It was the Adams way, and Abigail was excellent at it. She was also great at not blinking.

Natalie's eyebrows went up.

It was a miracle, what several months fleeing for your life followed by an afternoon spent with rifles aimed at you could do for your resolve in the face of a sharp question from an angry parent.

"Mine," Peter said, without missing a beat. "De Flandres got on board via my office - both figuratively and literally - and so that's what he commandeered. I've managed to get it ship-shape, though-- I think my father has even managed to wipe the last of his bugs from my personal systems."

The resolve was impressive (although not too surprising), but the answer itself apparently wasn't. Abigail's look turned a degree more icy than it had been before. "I am pleased for your systems," she said. "Hopefully similar care has been taken to repair all the other damage caused."

"Mom ––"

"Sweetie," said her father with a brief shake of his head, his arms loosely folded over his chest, "let her get it out of her system."

"We are taking care of our own," Peter said pleasantly, "In more ways than one. The Hegemony health plan offers full coverage for mental health treatment, for example, and we've had our own therapist come in for some fairly popular sessions."

"And funeral arrangements?"

There hadn't been any needed, as far as she knew. (Not counting Achilles – and Mrs. Adams would have been the last to count him.) There could have been.

"What are the Hegemony's policies for those that give their lives for it?"

"Funerals would be taken care of by the Hegemony, of course," Peter said with a mildness he'd learned from Abigail's daughter, "but we haven't had to have any thus far, thank God."

"I don't think there are gods that could have helped you, had there been one," Dominic noted with his own brand of mildness. His wife looked like she was about to say something, most likely something subtly scathing, but Natalie cut in abruptly.

"Peter, what did you say about parents coming to see us?"

Amazingly, Theresa and John Paul seemed like a smaller evil than standing here listening to a thinly veiled discussion about how she could have died.

"That we're here." Theresa Wiggin could be called many things, but none of them included the word 'mild' - especially not when one of her children was under threat.

"Sorry we're late." John Paul also didn't sound mild-- but affable, yes. "It's just we thought we were invited to a family meet and greet, and didn't think to keep our eyes out for an interrogation instead."

"There was no interrogation," Abigail told them lightly. "Merely a civil discussion among adults."

Natalie held back all her possible sighs and eyerolls and desperate looks at Peter. "Abigail and Dominic Adams, Theresa and John Paul Wiggin."

Now they'd been introduced. They could continue their quarreling.

"No interrogation," Peter agreed lightly. "Mr. and Mrs. Adams were merely trying to make it clear to me how much they disapprove of my putting their daughter in jeopardy. Which is an understandable sentiment, I'm sure you'll agree, being parents yourself, but somewhat misguided."

He smiled wryly at Natalie. "Since Natalie chose to follow me - and in doing so, has been magnificent and competent in so many ways I've lost count and don't deserve - it's her I owe professional and personal apologies to. Which I have given and will continue to give until such point as when she's satisfied."

Theresa bit back a comment about how hard it was to believe Peter had made apologies to anyone about anything - largely because she wasn't about to slander her own son in front of two people she wasn't sure she liked.

John-Paul just smiled politely, waiting for the current whatever it was to be settled before he made any decisions about offering either a sarcastic quip or a hand.

Natalie was opting for the former. "You sound like you're about to propose to me, Peter," she said, a little dryly. But, not in any way that could be understood as insulting. "Platonically."

Thankfully, her parents said nothing to that.

"Considering what I've put you through these past couple of months, I probably do owe you something sparkly and expensive," Peter said, grinning through his own snark.

Edited 2014-09-15 17:40 (UTC)

Natalie quirked some ghost of a smile back at his grin, and maybe even relaxed a tiny bit. Maybe. "True," she said. "But no diamonds, they're tacky."

Dominic had been watching them banter. It was something their family was extremely good at, watching and observing. "She was never much for playing princess," he put in, idly.

"Neither is my daughter," Theresa said. She had relaxed - some - though she was still not so sure about the Adamses. "Unfortunately for me, she was always far more interested in her books--" ...and helping her older brother take over the world... "--than in letting me gussy her up."

Abigail's head tilted. "You have a daughter?" she asked. "I don't think Natalie's ever mentioned Peter having any siblings."

Natalie had rarely felt any need to mention them. She thought that was one of her best qualities, sometimes.

Theresa's eyes darted - very briefly - to her son. (Because of course she would blame Peter, and not Natalie, for the omission.)

"We have three children," she said. "Peter is our oldest. His sister, Valentine, and his brother Andrew have left to join the interstellar colonization effort."

"Mm. Saint names." Of course she'd take note of that. Not in any particular tone. Just remarking on it like a faintly fascinating piece of trivia. "You must've been very devoted to parenthood, I couldn't imagine having raised three children."

Yes she could.

"At the time that we had our children, it was illegal to have more than two," John-Paul noted idly.

"John-Paul and I come from religious backgrounds," Theresa added, watching Abigail's face closely. "We wanted a third. We had to enlist Andrew in a military program to get the waiver." She smiled faintly. "Different times."

There wasn't much to see on Abigail's face. Theresa was just confirming what she already knew, and they had also named their daughter after one of the same saints, if most likely for different reasons. She nodded. "We had no restrictions," she noted. "We just felt three people was enough for a family."

"Seems to have worked so far," Dominic added. "Even if we are left with no one with us now that Natalie is here."

He quirked a faint little smile.

"Sometimes I dream of the day we might have time to ourselves again, instead of dedicating it all to our children," John-Paul said - a little dryly.

Theresa shot him a faint look. "And then suddenly we miss the other two terribly," she said. "It's rough. I'm glad that the two of you, at least, have the opportunity to visit."

"Not that we do so very often," Dominic noted. "No one seems to have the time. And children grow up so fast."

He knew that was a cliche. It was half the reason he said it.

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