A Game of Cat and Mouse [Daine]

"See you in the morning, Sniffer."  The agent he had temporarily been paired with that day cackled and Ian simply let the car door swing shut behind him.  He'd rather have taken public transit home but since he had already been in the car, the man had decided to drop him off.  Maybe it was their way of saying they still knew where he lived.  Of course they knew, it wasn't like he hid it.  His fingers itched to get back to his computer, information filed away in the back of his mind.  He wanted to share it.  It had been a while since he'd felt like he had enough to put something else together as Daedalus and it was about time he got back to it.  More than time.  He'd just been off his game in the few days since he'd encountered Daine.  The day after had been grueling.  They had questioned him for hours until they decided he hadn't learned anything new or interesting.  They knew exactly how long he'd been in her presence too.  He knew, at this point, that however they were monitoring him it showed when he was Gift-scenting.  

Speaking off, he kept feeling like he caught wiffs of her here or there.  It made no sense, she had no idea where he lived.  As he stood at the door to his apartment building he hesitated and glanced back down the dusky street.  There was no rain today, though the clouds were low in the sky, making the day darker than it should've been.  Still, he was finally feeling on center again despite the occasional hints of scent that just weren't -right-.  They'd decided, once again, that he was harmless.  He hadn't done anything productive recently except be in the room while they interviewed suspected Titans and confirm if they were or weren't, and what the nature of their power was.  Hell, by the end of the day he'd managed to let one of the low powered ones get away by claiming that he couldn't get the smell of the other Titan's out of his nose.  A threat of a headache was pounding in the back of his head but it didn't distract from his relatively good mood.  

Seeing nothing on the street, he trotted up the stairs to his third story studio.  It was tiny, just a shoebox with a kitchen and bathroom.  Pretty rundown, it held a mattress on a bare metal frame in the corner, and aging PC pushed up against the opposite wall, and a dresser that he rarely bothered to actually close the drawers on.  It was comfortably cluttered, but what dominated the place were books.  Ever wall was lined with as many bookshelves as would fit and were stuffed to the gills with everything from fiction to biographies to politcal treatise and philosophy.  It was home.

He locked the door firmly behind him, then pushed open the window to the fire escape.  With relatively fresh air blowing through the apartment, he inhaled slowly.  This was familiar.  It smelled like home.  Books and dust, his own body odor clinging to the rumpled bedding, even the very faint scent of the oatmeal he'd made for breakfast.  No trash though- he took that out every morning when he went to work and night before he went to bed.  He inhaled again and paused.  Eyes closed he let his lips part, drawing air in through both nose and mouth.  There it was again, that faint hint of her on the wind.  And this time he knew he wasn't chasing a phantom.  The real question was, where was she?

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Daine had stayed a black panther until the night sky had given way to the sun. The woman then shifted into a falcon in order to cover more ground and hopefully see where Ian had gone. The falcon was one of the forms she could stay in for months so she had no fears about shifting in mid-air. Vera had done that a couple times actually when she misjudged her timing on how long she had an animals form for. Nowadays, she made sure all of her bird forms at least had a week on them before she flew long distances. On good thing that she loved with her predator animals was that most of them could go days and sometimes even weeks without food. This had come in handy whenever she was hunting for information or in this case a person. This was a new experience for her, being so enthralled with one person. Ian had filled with such anger in such a short amount of time that she had to figure out why. She had to figure out what he could do and what his loyalties were. For some reason Veralidaine had to try and free Ian, the DTRC agent.

The day after there was no luck, she had scouted the entire city and came up with nothing. Vera flew down low to the ground so she could shift into a Beagle so she could actually pick up the man's scent again. Daine spent almost the entire day searching until she found it. There. The scent was faint but trackable. Her Beagle form howled like how every hound would have when it found a scent. Vera had learned years ago that when she was in a form, she might as well enjoy it. The hunt was back on.

Vera tracked the scent until she came to a building that had to have been an apartment building. The shifter switched forms again into a golden eagle and flew up into a tree that had openings large enough for her body to fit into. She was able to see into the windows now with the eagle's superior vision. There he was. Vera once again shifted into a Barn Owl and used her hearing to hear what Ian was doing and where he was based on movements he made. From there Vera made a plan.

That night, she shifted into a bat, waited for Ian to leave before dropping into the apartment through the fire escape. Before he returned, the last shift Vera made was a tiny mouse. Then she waited, moving around just enough so that Ian couldn't keep tabs on her exact location. Only she knew that would only last so long.

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The smell was maddening. Coming back from the grocery store, the smell had only gotten stronger. Now he knew she was close. Too close, for her. He tried not to change his routine, going through the basics of preparing dinner and eating it. He paced while he waited for things to finish, apparently lost in thought. In truth, he was casting about. Here at the window where he leaned for a moment he could smell her strongly, with overtones of something he wasn't sure he knew. Now he had her trail. For a moment he cursed himself for leaving the window open while he was gone. Then again, he was tired of this little game. It was damned time for him to figure out what she wanted and what he needed to do to get her to leave him alone.

Before he followed her scent, he checked over the room as carefully as he could for the bugs he thought might be there, but his paranoia proved false. It looked like they really, truly thought he was harmless. He supposed he was, in a way. As an individual he couldn't do much. All he could do was make information available, try to prod peoples' minds with his words, get them thinking and acting.

He tried to make his tracking casual, but the apartment was small. Eventually he caught sight of her though, just a flicker of movement and a whiff of fresh scent. Immediately- with more speed and agility than he looked like he should have, he lunged across the room. He didn't try and grab her, only tried to get a better view. A mouse. Hah. So the DTRC didn't know as much as they thought they did.

"Daine, that's enough. Just tell me what it's going to take for you to leave me alone."

Veralidaine knew when she was about to be caught and tried to race away so she could study Ian even more. Though now she had a good idea of what his power was. It had to be some kind of tracking or senses thing. Lucky for Ian, he didn't try to grab her. If he had tried, she would've shifted into something that would've been friendly at all for Ian, like a venomous snake or something. Vera couldn't do insects, she was strictly animals. Though she'd never tried fish, it would be interesting to see if she could do fish. Reptiles were difficult for her, even the ones she had shifted enough into to last her a couple days.

As it was, Vera shifted into a cat and hissed to fully show Ian her annoyance at being caught before she shifted back into her human form. Which had only her underclothes on and no shoes. She'd left them in that ally by the café when she started her hunt. That's how hunts went though, clothes weren't a necessity to someone who could shift without too many limits like herself. "Before we go any further, is this a trap? And could I please get a towel or a t-shirt at least... Please?" Around Aegis, she didn't feel weird being almost naked most of the time but in front of Ian it was different for some reason.

"So your power is some sort of tracking, yes? How so? I'm guessing either by a sense; probably either sight or smell or vibrations. Or maybe by hearing?" She asked the question nonchalantly as if the answer suddenly didn't matter to her.

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He had the good taste to look away as she resumed her human shape. He noted quickly that she was not particularly clothed, blushed, and before she even asked he walked over to the dresser and rooted through it, eventually finding an old t-shirt he hardly ever wore because it was too big for his taste. If he remembered correctly, it was a gift from his mother something like two years ago. He offered it to her without really looking at her, then turned away. It wasn't like he was trying to keep her there- it suited him just fine if she decided to run now that the jig was up.

"There's a towel in the bathroom over there if you'd rather. It's not a trap, not unless they have the apartment bugged. Which I don't think it is. They know I'm pretty harmless." He ran his fingers lightly over the nearest bookshelf, looking over the spines without reading the titles, just keeping himself busy while she covered herself.

He reached up and tapped his nose lightly when she asked what his power was. "The tracking is something I learned. I just have a very good sense of smell." He avoided mentioning that fact that he could scent gifts. If anything, that was what was most dangerous to other Titans and the thing most likely to get him on somebody's hit list. "I looked you up. You've done a good job keeping what you can do quiet. They've speculated you can shift more than just dogs and cats but they think it has to be around that size. I'm going to bet differently though. You smell like horse, and not like you've been around them lately. So what's the largest animal you've shifted, hmm?"

The woman accepted the clothes from Ian and silently and confidently put them on, trying not to show her slight embarrassment at being mostly naked in front of a man she had been hunting for days. The girl looked Ian in the eyes with her own green ones and murmured softly, "Thank you, Ian." The shirt was way too big and came down to her mid thighs. It was enough to cover her and she loved being barefoot. Plus it saved her shoes, for some reason the only clothes she kept when she shifted back into human form was her underclothes. The only explanation she had for this was that her animal forms must think that her underclothes were important to her skin wereas the rest was like shedding hair that was quickly replaced by more. Like a dog shedding in summer.

A good sense of smell huh...depending on what he actually smelled would determine if his power would be useful to Aegis or not. Her mind thought quickly. No matter what he smelled, it really mattered where his loyalties lied. "That sounds like a useful ability." Daine said calmly. The shifter continued to listen to Ian before she responded to what he said about her. The woman smiled at what he said, she could really turn this in any direction she wanted. "Let me guess, you've gotta report this right?" It was more of a statement than a question. They both knew he would have to.

The cunning of a fox came to mind. Vera's eyes slowly closed and then slowly opened, her smile brightened. The cunning of a trickster is perfect! Just within a couple seconds, Veralidaine knew just what to say to Ian's question. "Well of course I smell like horse, silly. Believe it or not, I actually do have a horse named Opal and I try to ride him weekly. Though my first shift actually was a horse." Daine's smile actually turned into a tiny frown, "It was painful and frightening. I didn't know what was going on and the shifts happened one after another after another until all I could do was just lie in Opal's stall sweating and gasping for air..." Those first few hours had been horrible but it had changed her life forever. Her smile returned, "I can actually shift into any domestic animal I want, so cats, dogs, horses, some birds, and even some reptiles like snakes. Though reptiles are hard for me to shift into, I'm not sure why." Vera had rambled for a reason as well as told him as much truth as she could without telling him just how dangerous she really was. If the Agency found out that she could turn into a king Cobra, venom and all and in the next second a raging elephant, then she'd not only be put into a holding facility but a top-security cage. Veralidaine would not have that...never.

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ooc: I couldn't resist using that pic

It had been a while since Ian had seen a woman in her skivvies and to put no fine point on the fact he had been raised with enough respect for them that he was positively abashed. He risked a glance over his shoulder when she started talking again, but really the big t-shirt didn't help, even if it did cover her up. His lips pursed into a thin, tight line at the memory of the last woman who'd wandered around his bedroom in nothing but one of his shirts. The night before she turned him in.

"I'll tell them what they need to hear." He shook his head, voice a little sharper than he intended. God, his head was starting to hurt. Of course, what the DTRC needed to know was completely at his disgression- more so than they realized. He just had to lie without lying, which he was starting to get very good at. A hint of curiosity got the better of him when she began to talk about how she'd found out about her gift. There never really had been anyone to talk to before about his. In the holding facility he'd heard people talk about it but... not many to him. And for the most part people avoided talking about it. There were more important things to lament, like their separation from their families, losing business, even missing their pets.

"Sounds frightening." He didn't really watch her, for the most part keeping his eyes either steadily on her face or wandering somewhere else around the room. It was just... uncomfortable, suddenly sharing his space with an uninvited guest. "Mine came on slowly. I actually didn't know much about it until after..." He hesitated, then shrugged. It was true, most of his training in his gift came after he joined the DTRC. He'd come into it late.

It wasn't often that Veralidaine was surprised by mere words but hearing Ian with the tone that he used when he told her that the Agency would know what he told them was shocking. That was almost what she had wanted an answer to, Ian's loyalty to the DTRC. That was almost it.

From that moment on, Daine relaxed, not completely but significantly enough to where even Ian would notice without looking at her, which she though was rude by the way. Especially beings Vera hadn't taken her bright green/blue eyes off of him since she had arrived, although that might be the hunter in her, or the prey. "That's interesting." The woman remarked curiously.

After she had told some about her power, Daine listened to Ian's response though she also started walking towards the kitchen. Her bare feet made almost no sound on the floor, Vera could make herself move absolutely silent if she wanted, so silent that non-gifted humans sensed the predator in her, she only did it though when she was literally hunting and couldn't shift right away. Couldn't have a human shifting into a goose and taking off right in the middle of a crowded area now could you? Veralidaine got to the kitchen and when she got to the tile, she enjoyed the coolness of it on her feet before she went to the fridge and opened it up. Looking inside, she decided on just having water to drink so she shut the fridge door and opened up the cupboard where the cups were and filled her glass up with cold water. "Don't worry, I know where everything is at for the most part. I haven't drank or ate since our last encounter." Vera looked a Ian's face and gave a bright full on smile, "It's ok, I made sure to be in the other rooms when you were changing or showering."

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"Yeah well, you can help yourself." He said dryly as she navigated the kitchen with perfect ease. While she got herself a glass of water, he wandered to the bathroom to dig out a bottle of aspirin for the headache slowly growing at the base of his skull. He swallowed two dry, frowning at the bitter taste, then tossed the bottle back into the disorganized cabinet.

"Thanks for the courtesy, I guess." He replied when she said she had given him at least the illusion of privacy. He glanced at his computer, glad he didn't keep anything important on the desktop. That in mind, he grabbed the satchel from where it rested next to the legs of the desk, pulling the laptop out and putting it into the charging dock on the table. Unless she was better than he was with computers, he didn't think she could've gotten to anything important in it, but once he shooed her out he could check.

"You can see yourself out any time now, by the way. They don't generally stop by for night visits but I do have work in the morning and I need to sleep." He pointed out, but his voice was resigned rather than irritated, like he didn't really expect her to leave until she was good and ready to.

Daine smiled at Ian's remark, glad to hear that his tone wasn't too harsh. Cool, maybe he was finally coming around. She cocked her head to one side, curiously, "Did you want some water with those? Here." Daine offered her cup to Ian, knowing how horrible tasting pills were without something to wash them down. She eventually just put the glass next to Ian, as close as she could to the man.

The shifter saw Ian check the computer and then go to the laptop to check it without really checking it. She knew it was to make sure she hadn't stolen any information. "You know, if I really wanted what was on that laptop; you never would've known I had even come in here and I wouldn't have stayed as long as I have..." Her tone was blunt and slightly annoyed. But then she was still up against a stranger basically, so she relented at the lack of trust and common sense to become bright and chipper again.

Daine shook her head, "No, one more thing, maybe." She went into the living room and picked up a pen and notepad from where Ian kept them. She scribbled on it in large and easy to read letters. She then ripped the page from the notebook and held it up for Ian to read between her hands. Her eyes were suddenly intense and deadly serious, along with a slightly hopeful expression yet wary about what the reaction would be. Vera was letting Ian see everything she was feeling at that moment...a rarity even for those who were closest to her. The note read:

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DO YOU WANT TO ESCAPE?? WE CAN HELP YOU.

He almost refused the offer of water flat out, then sighed and picked the glass up, tipping a swallow back all the same. It was his water, after all, and his glass. He set it back down and sat down in the beaten up office chair pushed up to the desk. He crossed his arms over his chest, still not really watching her as she moved around his apartment.

"Nothing important on there really." Ian said, perhaps a bit too casually. He wasn't great at lying outright. That's why he tried to use as much of the truth as possible normally. This, however, was not one of those lies. this was blatant, outright duplicity and he only hoped she believed him. The note caught him by complete surprise and for a moment he sat in absolute confusion and perhaps a bit of shock, a hundred ideas running through his head. Could she really break him out? Did he trust her to do it? he'd be reliant completely on her even if he did succeed. And the truth of the matter was... he'd be useless once outside the DTRC.

"No." Very quietly and very firmly, he shook his head. He didn't offer an explanation. She wouldn't understand and more than that, he couldn't risk blowing Daedalus's cover. He refused to let himself become a tool for Aegis or Haven- people deserved to know the truth, as unbiased as he could make it.

Her sassy attitude showed through as she grinned at Ian taking the cup she'd set down and drank the water. He obviously wasn't showing interest in her which normally didn't bother her but now it frustrated her. Daine's smile became a knowing smirk with raised eyebrows as Ian told her that nothing was on his laptop. Really.

Daine's heart sank as she heard Ian's soft answer to her silent question. She took up the pen and paper again and wrote:

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If you can't say yes or if you change your mind, I'll be keeping an eye of the café. Oh and don't bother sending Agents to stake it out. They'll never catch me and you know it.

Vera held up the note long enough for Ian to read it and then she crumpled both of the notes in her hands, took of Ian's shirt and shifted into her falcon form. Which was a pet bird common in the city, so she could get away with it in Ian's eyes, hopefully. She still had the crumpled balls of paper but they were in her talons. Vera landed on one of the furniture pieces that Ian had and at least waited for Ian's answer while also hoping that he would open the fire escape.

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Ian rolled his eyes when he read her second note, then quickly looked away when she began to strip. He could keep a faint blush from coloring his cheeks again. Dammit, did she have to keep losing clothes? While he liked to think he was happy celibate, that didn't mean he was dead. When he let himself lance up, she was in the form of some kind of predator bird. He wrinkled his nose a bit at the unusual smell of feathers.

"I'm not going to do that. I'll probably tell them I smelled it but couldn't find you. They'll most likely watch the apartment for a while so... don't come back here." He walked over to the fire escape and nudged the window open again, giving a gentle, somewhat sarcastic bow. "The sky is yours."

He swept a hand towards the window and got out of the way.