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Suri had not been expecting company.

She'd been told there was company on the way, and had ample opportunity to prepare for this eventuality, but she'd been too focused on her work to notice the additional little notifications on her phone. Suri Ellis was a very busy woman for someone who spent hardly any time outdoors these days: there were papers to grade, reports to file, and a network of secret organization scientists with whom she needed to maintain a rapport to ensure that the Destiny City branch had some understanding of the latest crystal tech. The new journals were out for the quarter, which meant she had plenty of literature to catch up on, and they were sprawled out on her loveseat mixed in with a number of mundane academic books, next to a room temperature cup of tea and a cat that had been sleeping until he was so rudely interrupted by a knock at the door.

At the sudden threat, Maverick's ears shot back and he shot into the kitchen, angry yellow-green eyes watching the door from under the island. Suri herself was slower to respond, but gave the door a perplexed look as she wrapped her cardigan around herself, using her arms to assist in her stand. She made the walk to the door steady, if slowly, assessing the blonde through the eyehole before opening the door inwards, just a crack.

"Can I...help you?" Suri asked, her voice professional but thin as she gave the other woman an assessing glance down and up. Most of her body remained blocked by the door, so that this stranger wouldn't immediately notice the novelty loungewear shorts she'd been reading in. It certainly had nothing to do with the exposed prosthetics below the knee of her left leg, which she currently leaned on.

Suri gave Penelope a look, a long, skeptical look from under her disheveled bob. But after a moment, she gave a slow nod and rubbed a hand over her mouth before she pulled the door open further, motioning for Penelope to come in.

"Yes. I didn't think you were coming over so soon," Suri stated, waiting for the other woman to step over the threshold and into the living room before closing the door behind them both. She fidgeted in the small spaces of time where she didn't feel she had Penelope's notice, little things like straightening her cardigan and tucking her bangs back behind her ears. It felt a bit like being a child and nudging a toy under her bed when her whole room hadn't been cleaned yet. Thankfully, the only clutter in the room was her study space on the loveseat--the rest of the space was disarmingly quaint, the walls decorated neatly with black and white photos in wooden frames and the couch draped with a patchwork quilt in blues that looked handmade.

"I assume Chase is a friend from work? He told me he knew someone who could help me with a small problem." Suri crossed the rug-covered floor of the living room to retrieve her cup of tea. She held it close to her as she rounded the bar into the kitchen, a hand lightly brushing against a railing that had been installed about hip height along the entire perimeter of her apartment. When she reached the stove top, she grabbed a kettle from the back griddle and dumped its contents into the sink, clearing it with fresh water. All the while, she kept her eyes focused on her hands, whether it was from some particular exertion or to keep from meeting Penelope's gaze.

"The project is in the dining room. Do you drink tea?" She set the kettle on and set the stove to medium, referencing a lavender clump of something yarn related in the next room over with two needles sticking up out of it, somehow suspended by the sheer number of tangles cast onto the work.

"You what?" Suri's eyebrows lifted in mild surprise when the other woman set down the cup, tilting her head as if it might be some sort of trick. She reached for it cautiously, then lifted it to eye height to appraise the cup itself before leaning in to take a whiff of the contents. "That's...very generous of you. Thank you," she nodded, her expression knitted and unsure of how to process the gesture. Suri had grown unaccustomed to the idea of a friendly acquaintance--not many people came to visit, and when they did there was usually something wrong. She was well practiced when it came to managing crises, but simple house calls had long since fallen out of her expertise.

Her eyes flickered to the yarn corpse splayed out over her counter and she pulled the cup closer to her chest, her mouth thinning into a flat line across her face. "It's a shawl," she said plainly, crossing the space to unfurl the piece across her dining room table. In most of the square foot of work there were hints of delicate stitching, fraught with the a number of lopsided but otherwise sound loops clearly done by a beginner's hand. However, one of the rows near the edge of her needle had been pulled entirely from it's place and allowed to run down nearly half of the fabric. To make matters worse, the loose ends appeared to be tangled together, both with each other and the actual skein of yarn.

"My cat was jealous," Suri offered as the only explanation, bringing her cup to her lips and taking a sip. Sweet Jesus, this is good. When was the last time I went out for fresh tea? The sigh that left Suri's lips was one of perfect contentment, and tasted like cloves.

"Clearly you've never owned a cat," Suri responded dryly, crossing the room to stand at the opposite end of the table while Penelope did her work, still cradling the gifted cup close to her chest. She made no efforts to feign the pointed interest as the other woman assessed the situation, and when the project was declared salvageable her shoulders fell in relief.

"Good, that's good," Suri nodded emphatically, turning away to sip at her tea again. Cloves, and something smoky that lingered like the ache in her bones. She made the effort so her hands wouldn't shake, sliding out a wicker chair so that she might sit while watching, and it was something of a step-wise process; place the cup down, move the chair, place her hands on the table for support, slowly lower to seated. It made her feel like the elderly and infirm, and she scowled even as she rubbed her wrists.

"Would have been a lot of effort to go through just to call the thing a lost cause," she noted, reaching for her cup again. Just as she might have begun to relax, the kettle began to screech its pitched whine, and Suri reacted only in breathing sharply through her nose. "Just a moment," she said as an afterthought, beginning the steps in reverse--put the cup down, find support on the table and a railing, grimace when she pulled herself to standing.

"I've got green tea, black tea, matcha, and a rooibos," she grumbled, staring pointedly at the kettle and not her guest. "What would you like to drink?"

"A trunk would work, probably," Suri mused in agreement, reaching up to an overhead cabinet to reach for her affects, a simple cup stained a powder blue, a small metal tin with a neatly handwritten label, one of an armory of basket infusers that had been hung on the wall at a perfect distance from each other. It was clockwork, the motions she made as she packed the infuser, place it gently in the mug, reached for a thermometer to check the temperature of the rolling water, then set to pouring just enough to fill all but half an inch of the mug. Her shoulders relaxed, her gaze softened, and it was the least her fingers had shaken since she'd opened the door.

When she turned back for the table, her immediate reaction was to stiffen up when she saw the other woman's hands on her work--her work--but she forced down the impulse to fuss when she remembered that Penelope was here to help. Suri was safe, in her home and among good company, and this woman had done nothing but appear in a timely fashion with an excellent brew and an eye for fixing broken things. She supposed it was time she started being grateful for it.

"No, thank you," she responded, sliding the tea over to Penelope once it had properly steeped. "I have--it's just, well, I'm still learning how to do everything, after--everything, really. I understand it takes a certain level of patience most people don't possess." And a certain level of patience the Negaverse wasn't known for, but it was impolite to talk ill of mutual company on the first meeting. That could come later, once she was sure Penelope was of a similar mind.

Suri's eyes glazed over the work, her mouth set even thinner. "You could call it stubbornness, I suppose," she shrugged, hands woven across her cup. "I have seniority where I am, and I know what I'm looking for in regards to our mutual interests." The knot between her shoulders told a different story, one where she was clinging white-knuckled to the one known quantity in her life, because even if it was not as lucrative and paid less, it was hers and she had carved something out of her failures, paltry as it was. She looked down at her cup, certain that if she made eye contact in that moment that all of her secrets would spill over, that Penelope would know her for the sniveling creature she was.

"And besides, the academic schedule is better suited for my research," she added, sitting back at the table with her eyes focused and intent on the dance of Penelope's fingers. Still, she huffed at Penelope's comment about hard work and dedication, shoulders back. "I assure you, my resume speaks of nothing more than patience, especially when you consider our extracurriculars." She tucked a wedge of white-blonde hair behind one ear, clearly more eager to discuss her sliver of achievements than the gaping maw of where she was found to be left wanting.

"I'll have you know that in terms of length of service, I have a longer record than most of our current leaders," she explained, smugness withering to a low frown when she remembered that her fun fact then begged the question of why she, herself, wasn't in a leadership role. "But that's not really important--how on earth are you doing that so fast?" She stared pointedly at the quick unraveling of her work, which had taken her weeks to assemble. It took more time to create than destroy, she told herself, it was nothing to do with the clumsy hands Thraen had left her with. She refused to consider herself hobbled.

Suri nodded warily, searching for intent in those bright blue eyes and manicured expression. She opened her mouth to argue that she was just as skillful as any other captain, that she had more than paid her dues with her underappreciated efforts, but she had already lost the taste for her bitter words. This woman wasn't a threat, she was trying to help, so Suri bit down whatever affronted response she'd been building with a curt nod.

"Well, you're very good at it," Suri offered, a tad disgruntled in her admission. She folded her hands over each other and regarded the mess of her project, the offer of an outing, the small bit of hope that built in her chest at the thought of the potential of new supplies. It took her a moment to mull it over, as she needed to consider whether it would interfere with all of the plans she didn't have for the day, but after a brief period of silence she nodded again.

"If it wouldn't take too much time from your schedule," she responded, moving slowly to stand. "It might be nice."