“I surrender, on these conditions…”

Rachel Summers stares at you for a couple of seconds. You match her gaze, mentally preparing for a surprise attack, but what she says next surprises you.

“I surrender, on these conditions,” she says. “First, you don’t touch me.”

You decide to humour her and nod, noncommittally.

“I know what you’ve done to the other girls,” she continues. “So second – stop touching them, too. Third of all, you help us stop HYDRA.”

“Stop HYDRA?” you ask. “Isn’t that a little…. beneath your pay grade? Phoenix **** and all that?”

Marvel Girl looks at you, a singular eyebrow raised.

“You don’t know, do you,” she says, “what they’re actually doing in these bases?”

“Oh, I do,” you say, smoothly bluffing. “But if a guy like me can handle it, I’m sure that you could, too.”

“You’re unique,” she says. “You can earn their trust and betray them. That’s not something that any of the Avengers or X-Men could accomplish.”

“Mhm… not with any of your ridiculous psychic powers, of course,” you say.

“Shut up. The point is that’s the third condition. Otherwise, no surrender.”

“Sure thing, Rachel,” you say. “So what does it mean when you surrender?”

“It means I promise not to hurt or attack you,” she says, as if it’s the simplest thing in the world.

“I’m not sure I trust you,” you say, looking carefully at her. “And I doubt you trust me, either.”

“Fine. I’ll open up my mind to you, let you see that I’m being completely truthful.”

“No, I need to be able to place restrictions myself on you,” you counter. “Strong telepathic bindings.”

She narrows her eyes for a second, and then nods.

“Only on what we agreed though. If you move any further than that, I promise that I’ll destroy you.”

You inwardly grin. She can’t destroy you once she’s unable to hurt you. As she casts her mind open to you, revealing the most complex psyche and mind that you’ve ever seen, you pour through her thoughts and defences, peeling it back layer by layer. She doesn’t seem to mind, bringing up what looks helpful for you to amend. You ignore her suggestions, knowing that she’s probably intentionally trying to bait you into making a weaker than necessary restriction.

“Feeling a little lost?” she asks, as you fumble around with what seems to be a telepathic relay. Could she use this to influence somebody else to harm you? The implications of each various part of her mind stretch towards the infinite, and you can hardly keep up.

“Nah, it’s all good,” you say, as you devise an elegant solution. You bind the relay’s receptors and signallers to the same mechanism that determines harmful intent towards you, causing it to short-circuit in the event that something goes wrong.

“Clever,” she says, noticing the changes, “very clever.”

Her manner is disarming, and you think she’s trying to distract you by leaning forwards, revealing an ample amount of cleavage. You clench your fist, holding back. If all goes to plan, she’ll be yours anyways. Now is not the time to lose focus.

You operate with surgical precision, targeting various parts of her mental capacity, subtly influencing the parts that you fully conceptually grasp, while fumbling with broad moves where the nuances of the mind escape you. It might restrict her a little more than is necessary, but better safe than sorry. At any rate, she doesn’t seem to think you’ve overstepped.

Within a flurry of changes, you secretly slip in a trigger within her mind, placing it discreetly along with various conditionals on the specificities of what qualifies as harm. With this in place, you feel much more confident moving forwards, and the pace picks up.

“Somebody’s feeling like a big-shot now,” she says, smirking. Has she noticed what you’ve done? You decide to filter out her voice for now.

The work takes several hours. She’s agile, and even while appearing cooperative, you can’t help but feel that you’ve missed something, but the end result seems right. Twenty-seven various interlocking runes, bindings, psychological impulses and neurochemical changes render her mentally, emotionally, and physically incapable of harming you. When you send a pulse of rage directed at yourself into her mind, she flinches visibly, recoiling at the horror of the idea.

“Are you satisfied now?” she asks, a dead serious expression on her face.

“It’ll do,” you grunt, and watch as her mental barriers fall into place once more, shielding her mind from any more of your influence.

“It’s my turn now. I’ll need to work on your mind to uphold my end of the agreement.”

What do you say?