may catch-all

[unmakeme]

who: Natasha Romanoff and your character
what: lots of walking, fair amount of drinking, little bit of rescuing
when: month of May
where: all around town, particularly bars or clubs
warnings:

1 dino-fight

There’s something about throwing herself into work. It’s not satisfying, that’s not the word she would use. It’s… well, it’s familiar. Leaving a whole lot of death in her wake, that’s what she was built for. Usually it’s very bad people, but she’s almost used to it being weird lizard monsters, freaky insects, giant crocodiles, various dinosaur like creatures. It’s almost becoming the norm. Even better when they turn out to taste good. Save some money on a food bill. Clint would probably find that morbidly funny.

The flying ones are the worst, not because of the difficulty, but because of familiarity. Fighting with her eyes on the sky, with a mind to vertical action, that’s a throw-back to something real.

Luckily, that train of thought is cut off by a surprised shriek and a call for help, and she has something else to focus on. That something being a pterodactyl monster with a person in its claws. Not ideal. Natasha turns her attention, assesses the way the creature is moving with the additional weight, and takes the last two shots in her clip. Both connect, neither take it down. So she ejects the empty clip, slams another one into her gun, flips herself up onto the awning of a building, and takes a slower and more careful shot. This one travels through the creature’s eye, and the heavy, meaty sound of it hitting the ground would be a lot more satisfying if not for the fact that it’s landed on the intended meal.

Natasha jumps down, and jogs over, bracing her shoulder underneath the hulking corpse and shoving it up and off of the person beneath. “You ok?”

2 getting as drunk as humanly possible

It’s not just the latest monster attack that’s got her drinking. It would be nice to pretend that’s the case. It would be slightly healthier. Sadly, it’s not true. She was drinking before the dinosaurs turned up, and she’ll be drinking after they’re gone. Some nights, she goes to clubs, gets lost in the loud music and the dark corners, lets other people buy her drinks. Most of the time, she just ends up in a bar that doesn’t look to her like it’s full of people who will want to talk, and stays until closing so that she can be alone without feeling completely alone.

Which does not mean she always stays alone. It’s impossible to get away from everyone. Occasionally she ends up seeing someone she knows from work, from her building or gym, and there’s no longer an easy way to tell them to get lost. Or maybe she’s just tired. Perhaps, deep down, she doesn’t really want to be alone.

3 walking after dark

Even after the bars close, or when Natasha realizes that if she keeps going, she’s going to end up falling asleep there, she doesn’t always want to go back to her apartment. It’s not home. It’s about as far from home as any place she’s ever lived.

So she walks, just to put it all off.

She walks through streets of closed up shops, lights off and shades drawn, and most of the time she’s thinking about the stillness of Manhattan after the alien attack. Occasionally a certain stretch of the road or cluster of stores will make her think of even earlier times, of dead drops and fleeting connections in deserted town centers, dancing through camera blind spots like it was effortless, like it wasn’t a heart-pounding jumble of precision and uncertainty, tempting fate with every step.

She walks along the perimeter, checking the guards, looking for faces she knows, ones she doesn’t, listening for movement beyond the fence. She tries to imagine what’s coming next. She’s rarely correct, but that doesn’t mean she’ll stop wondering. This is not the kind of life she can predict. It’s not the kind of life she ever wanted to be living. Sometimes that circuit will carry her through until morning, and she can skip sleep entirely, grab a quick shower and head to the gym, pretend she’s fine.

wildcard!
Everybody knows how to do this one. Want to do something I haven’t talked about already? This is the option for you.

Comments

2!

[stumbledfromtheashes]

Iona has settled into life in the Quarantine easily enough, now. She’s been there for long enough that she’s used to things. Even if it’s far too calm and far too uneventful in ways that make her itch with restless energy sometimes. She likes it, truth be told. Likes the fact that nothing is purposefully trying to kill her. Yet, anyway.

And despite the complications of… whatever it is with her and Cullen. But after the flowers, and the incident at the hot springs, she can no longer deny that there is something. (Nor can she maintain the paltry attempt at maintaining distance by thinking of him as Serah Rutherford.)

She’s restless, this evening, but she’s trying very hard to not worry either Dorian or Cullen (it won’t last, sooner or later she’s stealing outside the wall again because the Quarantine is too bloody calm, but for the moment she’s staying within its boundaries) so instead of exploring outside the Quarantine she slips off to a bar to drink. What she wouldn’t give for Bull and some of his Maraas-Lok right now.

But the strongest drink this bar has will do for the moment. She slides gracefully onto a barstool and orders, absently rubbing at her gloved left palm as she waits for the bartender to return with her drink.

[unmakeme]

Natasha did not have work today, does not have work tomorrow until the evening, so she is going for quantity. A very great quantity of mid-shelf vodka. She doesn't take much notice of Iona until the bartender passes her with the woman's drink, and the glass is... is it smoking faintly? That's got to be some trick of the light. Natasha reaches out her hand, catches the guy's arm. "Hang on a sec."

The pause and turn is enough for her to confirm that it's not actually producing smoke. Right. Good. It's also enough for her to catch a whiff of the contents, and fucking hell. It smells like it could dissolve a battery. "What is--" No, that's not a question she actually needs answered. "I want one of those." That's where the conversation will wind, no matter what the answer to any other question she could ask might be, so why not?

It takes less time for Natasha to get her drink than it did for Iona to get hers. She throws it back, even though it's probably not meant to be a large shot, but rather a small sipping glass, and she's surprised the force of the punch to her lungs doesn't knock her off her stool. It's only now that she really looks at the woman who first ordered it. She's even slimmer than Natasha is. That's surprising.

It's also enough to get Natasha to slide off of her stool and walk over, half finished vodka bottle hanging loosely from her hand. "Do you always drink like this?"

[stumbledfromtheashes]

Iona doesn’t expect her drink choice to draw attention; it hasn’t before. Unless she drank it around Dorian, probably, in which case there would be fondly disparaging comments about her taste. So when she’s maybe a sip or two into her drink and there’s an unfamiliar woman (a red-head she’d noticed when she’d first entered, drinking vodka) heading over to where she’s seated, she tilts her head curiously.

“Not usually, no,” she tells her with a soft laugh. “But sometimes the occasion calls for it.” And she suspects there’s heavier drinking in her future, given how far she has to go yet before what Dorian has told her of the future will come to pass. And given Adamant… no, sometimes the occasion calls for a very strong drink indeed.

[unmakeme]

"That good, huh?" Natasha doesn't actually expect an answer as she slides onto the stool next to Iona, and it's probably clear from her tone and body language. The bartender brings her another empty glass for her vodka and sets it down in front of her before making himself scarce.

Nat pours herself another drink, because she's already paid for this, so she's not leaving it unfinished. "So, how many of those before you're passed out on the floor?" Because her assumption was spot on. This woman is a wisp compared to Nat. She hasn't missed the ears, and the odd shine to her eyes in the darkness, and it would be impossible to miss the huge tattoo spreading across her entire forehead and down half her nose. Not human, sure, and she wonders for a moment if she's got anything in common with those horrible creatures that Thor brought to Earth years ago - the same slight stature, the same delicately pointed ears.

Plenty of differences, too, of course.

Still, the universe is an unfathomably large place, as she's still discovering.

[stumbledfromtheashes]

“Isn’t it always?” Iona has no intention of talking about Adamant or anything else with a woman she hardly knows (she hasn’t even talked to Dorian about Adamant, and she considers the man her bloody brother), but that short sentence says more than enough, she thinks.

She raises an eyebrow at her new drinking companion, smirking slightly before downing what remains of her drink. She makes a face at the way it hits her, the burn. But it doesn’t stop her from ordering a second. “So far I haven’t found that number.” Not that she’s set out to try, but she has consumed quite a lot of them on nights like this.

[unmakeme]

Natasha purses her lips as she stares at her glass. "I can't figure out if you mean that as a regret or a gauntlet." Not that it matters much, either way. Of course, things can always be both. Most of a person's life can be regret, mixed in with other emotions and motivations. It has a special way of leeching into things.

In the time it take for Iona to get her second drink, Natasha has slowly and evenly downed the contents of her glass, and filled it again. This time, Iona's doesn't look the slightest bit smoky. That one will have Nat puzzling for a while, she's sure. She's never been a big fan of things not making absolute sense. She has the skills, out of necessity, to move on even when they don't. Doesn't mean she likes it.

She holds up her rocks glass, four fifths full of vodka, and spares a moment to wonder if you still call it a rocks glass when you have no ice in it. Another moment for her to decide that it doesn't really matter, so she doesn't really care. Then she angles herself ever so slightly toward Iona. "To shitty days, and the survival of same."

[stumbledfromtheashes]

“Something of both, I suppose,” Iona retorts with a laugh. Regret she’s drowning in, but she’s been throwing gauntlets in challenge in some fashion since the Conclave. Or, the gauntlets she’s thrown have had more importance since then, anyway. She’s never been one to sit idly by.

Which might be part of why the quiet of the Quarantine makes her so bloody restless. All there is, is idleness. Almost. (And too much to do back home.)

She holds up her glass, knocking it gently against Natasha’s. “To surviving shitty days."

[unmakeme]

"Shitty days," Natasha repeats, relaxing her throat as she brings the glass to her lips and tips her head back, letting the alcohol slide down without even tasting it. "And giant crocodiles. And toxic plants. And dinosaurs. And backfiring magic." And everything else this place has tried killing them with so far. It's a very long list.

Another glass of vodka, another chance for reflection. Those opportunities to do the smart thing, the responsible thing, and walk away from a destructive situation. Natasha has seen a lot of those moments in her rear-view mirror lately. "Have you ever heard of Earth?" There's the slightest moment of consideration, no more than the space of a breath. "Before you came here." Because everyone and their mother seems to be from some variation of home, though almost no one is actually from home. She highly suspects that not a single person here is someone she knows. Close, but not a match, not in any of the most important ways, the only things that count when everything else falls by the wayside.

[stumbledfromtheashes]

Iona smirks slightly. “It almost reminds me of home. Well, the backfiring magic bit, at least.” Practically mundane when compared to everything the Inquisition has been dealing with, but a certain similarity nonetheless. She takes deep swallow of her drink, and finds herself missing Bull, just a little at the burn of it.

She wonders if she could find Maraas-Lok, here...

She hums a laugh and shakes her head. “Unfortunately not. I’ve only heard of that world since being brought here.” She has noticed that a considerable number of people seem to be from some variation on this Earth. Fewer still are from worlds similar to her own, and there are only three that are from a version of Thedas, currently.

[unmakeme]

"Your home sounds interesting... and kind of awful. No offense. Unless backfiring magic is somehow fun there and not life threatening?" Natasha kind of doubts that. She pours another drink and starts sipping at it. No knowledge of Earth is a plus, as far as Natasha is concerned. There won't be any searching for commonalities, no comparison of their slightly differing worlds looking for ways to feel less alone. Which is ridiculous, because in the end it only makes people feel even more alone, in her experience.

"So... is it rude to ask about the tattoo?" Never mind that you can't ask that asking about asking about the tattoo is the same thing as asking about the tattoo. All right, her own thoughts are starting to make her slightly dizzy. Finally. It's not supposed to take so much of a bottle to do that. Next time, she's sticking with what-- the blonde is drinking. Probably about time to get a name. "I'm Nat, by the way. Hi."