march catch all

[unmakeme]

WHO: Natasha Romanoff and others
WHAT: guarding the perimeter, fighting monsters, helping during the blackout
WHERE: the housing building, the perimeter, beyond the fence, wherever

NOTES: Natasha has an open top level for the festival during the beginning of the month. If you have any questions, or would like a custom starter, PM me or hit me up on plurk. Also, I'm totally fine with getting tags in actionspam if that's how you're comfortable writing, but I'm comfortable writing in prose. So in that case, our styles won't match. I'm good with it if you are.

one
Natasha's still not thrilled to be here, but she accepts that she's stuck. She also accepts that she's not going to be able to fulfill her quota and get home if the whole place goes to shit in the next couple of weeks. Ill fitting or not, her world is still hers, and she has a right to it. She might not have a right to much, but she figures her place on the planet is something she can safely claim.

She takes her job with the Guard, and she does it well. She's good at it, and even the members who don't like her (or hold a grudge) can see that. She figures things will get a little less tense eventually, though she doubts she'll make many friends. Which is fine by her. It's weirdly satisfying getting back to her solo roots. She takes patrols at odd hours, the ones no one else wants to take. She puts herself on call 24 hours a day.

Even when it's not strictly her shift, she still takes rounds along the perimeter. It's soothing, and everyone is stretched so thin.

two
Natasha is still not entirely sure how her violent outburst upon her arrival landed her a solid job. She's also not sure how she managed to swing a shared room all to herself on an otherwise abandoned floor. It seems too good to be true. Still, it's the only reason she's been spending time in her room. Alone does not have to mean lonely, and she needs the quiet to think. Even when the power begins going out in the building, she doesn't mind. Until people start heading up. Her floor's power doesn't go out and it's definitely not because she's stacked the deck in her favour, making sure her floor draws on the grid with priority. Which is a great idea, until people start heading up to take advantage of that fact. She's the only occupied apartment, all other doors locked, but there's still the balcony. She can hear conversations out in the shared space, people taking advantage of power outlets with juice.

It's only a matter of time before someone figures out that one apartment is occupied, meaning there's also a fully functional bathroom. She's expecting the knocks on her door, but that doesn't mean she's thrilled about it. Still, she answers, opening the door but keeping the doorway blocked with her body. "Yes?"

two and a half
On the hunt for some privacy, Natasha heads to one of the abandoned floors with a large shared living room. Once she's there, she sets herself up with a battery operated lantern and a book on one of the couches, a snack on the table in front of her. It's creepy, but she's alone. She starts out alone, at any rate.

three
It's not strictly her job, but everyone is stretched pretty thin, and she's trying to make the best of this. More than anything, she's trying to remember that the people around her are not the people to be blamed for what's happened to her. So when there's talk of looting and other criminal activity taking place when the power to the city's marketplace area goes down, she heads over there. More than once. Sometimes with a partner, sometimes without. Either way, she operates more or less the same. the only real difference is her willingness to attempt conversation if there's someone with her in a chatty mood.

Anyone on the wrong side of the law, though, received no mercy. She offers one single warning to drop their weapons and put their hands on their heads. She hopes no one actually listens to her, because she wants to hit things, and criminals are an ideal target.

WILDCARD!
If you have another idea, lay it on me.

Comments

for Ray Palmer

[unmakeme]

Natasha overhears the conversation. It's not directed at her, but it's of interest. There's a group attacking the fence, and one Guard is warning his friend that this is becoming a pattern. They attack every day, in almost the exact same place, at almost the exact same time. They're reasonably smart, well organized, a dangerous pack. Every time the Guard approaches them with sufficient numbers, they realize they won't win and flee. Only to return the next day. Eventually they're going to find a way through, or someone is going to get killed. As the conversation trails off, backup arrives, and the beasts back away, then turn tail and begin running.

"See?" says one of the guards, "and they'll be back tomorrow."

Natasha watches the retreating pack, judges the distance to the cover of trees, and nods her head once. "No they won't." She's down the wall and sprinting after them as quickly as her mind can calculate her odds. She's running flat out after the pack, determined to reach them before they get to the nearest stand of trees when she hears, almost feels a suit pass overhead.

'Stark.'

The first thought in her mind. An actual look skyward quickly shows her that this man is not, in fact, Tony. She's disappointed. Then mad at herself for being disappointed. Then mad at herself for being mad. So maybe she just really needs something to be mad at? The pack has realized they're being pursued, and the creature bounding toward her from the right, all gangly limbs and claws and teeth, that seems like a pretty good thing to be mad at. So she pauses in her pursuit, batons in hand and Bites crackling with energy, braced for impact.

[keepitup]

He's been mistaken for a bird, and a plane, but Ray Palmer has never been mistaken for his co-worker before. Fellow Perimeter Defense Engineer and Coordinator Tony Stark. If she ever tells him, he'd laugh, and then probably tell Tony the next day at work.

But right now, Ray's flying with purpose. He'd heard about the attacks — or maybe these are only semi-attacks, since the creatures always seem semi-serious about attacking. Either way, he's come to check it out, and maybe put a stop to it if he can. The Perimeter Guard is already spread thin as it is. They can't afford to keep amassing in one spot on the wall on a regular basis. It just makes everywhere else less safe.

That's when he sees a woman though, chasing after the pack on foot. From up here, Ray can just barely make out her face, and then he watches as the pack realizes she's after them and turns around. She has some kind of weapon with her, but as Ray's scanners start to analyze, he he lifts an arm and aims an energy pulse towards the ground. Even if he doesn't hit the creature directly, it should do enough to scatter the pack. That way they won't all go for the red-head.

[unmakeme]

He means well, she's sure of it, but when the beam of energy hits the ground and the beasts scatter, she curses sharply under her breath. She looks toward the sky, to the man flying in a circle above her head. "Don't let them reach the trees!" She is literally shouting into the sky. What is her life? They're scattering. This is the opposite of what she wants. They're no longer in a tight knit group that she can pick off one by one. At no point does Natasha think of herself as the prey here. She is the hunter. The monsters should fear her.

The one who was headed for her initially made the mistake of swinging wide. He did not head back for his pack, but out behind her. Which means, as he corrects, she might be able to intercept him if she's quick enough. She doesn't look up to see if Ray has heard her, is doing as asked. She just runs, head down, arms held in tight like a sprinter. Disoriented and desperate to rejoin his pack, the monster in her sights doesn't even see her coming.

[keepitup]

Is that a curse? Ray can't actually tell from this high up. Maybe she's thanking him for his help, though, normally people look up when they do that. But Ray really doesn't have time to contemplate this further, because before the woman yells up those instructions, he's already flying after one of the ones that started to bolt.

"Oh no you don't," he says to himself, before aiming and taking another shot. It takes him a few tries, but he nails it in the end, and one of the creatures goes down.

[unmakeme]

Natasha dispatches hers just as quickly, with a far more hands on approach. She jumps on its back, a hit from the baton with the full weight of her momentum behind it, combined with a shot of half voltage from her Bites, and it stumbles. Doesn't quite collapse, and she uses an elbow to the base of the skull, a pitching forward of her weight to take its feet out from under it. It hits the ground hard, and she leaps off just in time to keep from being pinned beneath it as it rolls, an attempt to use its own momentum to bring itself back to its feet. Doesn't get that far, though, and she brings her heel down hard, her full weight behind it at the point where skull meets spine.

The body may continue to twitch for a moment, but she knows it's not getting up again. She just turns to the remainder of the pack, starts running again. The man in the suit, he's not letting them reach the cover of trees. His shots don't hit every time, but they are loud, and bright, and now these creatures know they mean death. He doesn't have to hit them, necessarily, he just has to keep them from going where the two of them can't follow. "Back to me!" she shouts, hoping he's close enough to hear her. "Herd them here!" It's difficult to hit a moving target when you can't anticipate the movements, she knows that, and an animal running scared does not move rationally.

one

[anotheroldsoldier]

Search and Rescue is a decent placement for Bucky (and for Steve). They never left a man behind during the war if they could help it, this is just more of the same. When he's not on a specific job for his division, he takes regular patrols, though. Gets himself out and moving around, doing something useful. Night patrols are especially nice, grounding. They get him out of his head.

He doesn't expect to run into anybody else this time of night, in what has been, thus far, a quiet stretch of fence.

"Another night owl?" He calls out, voice friendly enough for the moment, testing the waters - is this woman with the guard, or is she up to something else? His stance is loose and casual, despite the stars and stripes he wears, the shield on his arm.

[unmakeme]

It's interesting how very similar and yet completely at odds Natasha and Bucky's reasons for fitting in well with Search and Rescue are. They are good at it, getting in and out of tight spaces, putting themselves at risk, pulling off the impossible. The difference is that Bucky can do it because it's the most important thing in the world to him, to do whatever needs to be done to bring a person home safely because he cares. Natasha's strength is that she doesn't care. Not the way most people do. She wants to bring them back safely, but it's not a personal investment. It's a job. She thinks in clean lines of logic and cost benefit analysis patterns, and she gets the job done. She's still getting used to the no man left behind idea, and there aren't many people who can bring out the feeling in her. She doubts she's ever going to be that selfless. Killers don't nurture.

Right now, Natasha is looking out at the treeline, thinking of the city Clark told her about. She wants to see it, wonders how far away it is, exactly how to get there. More than that, she wonders what's beyond that city, out in the areas that can't be accessed, that no one has made it back to tell the tale of. She feels trapped, smothered, suffocated. Death might be waiting beyond the trees, but there could also be answers, and at least there would be space.

She doesn't turn her head immediately, doesn't recognize the voice. She's also not looking for conversation, certainly doesn't want to make a friend. "I'm not really looking to--" When she finally does look over, she's caught off guard. "...talk." It doesn't happen often, that something throws her. It's not Steve. The voice is wrong, the shoulders, the walk. It's all just... not quite right. She doesn't even care that it could be seen as an aggressive move, she powers on her Bites, the crackling hum of energy arcing across the top of her hand. Her most recent modification carries more voltage than the previous knuckle contact points, two versions ago, when Stark had input. It hurts every time she powers them up, but they're vicious. The stopping power matters far more than the pain. Besides, pain keeps you sharp. "Where did you get that shield?"

[anotheroldsoldier]

That voice... She almost, almost sounds like someone he's been missing since he got here. Not quite, though. There's something inherently different, and there's also no note of recognition like there would be if it were her. His hopes lift and dash against the rocks of reality all in the span of a moment, because it isn't her.

It isn't her, and yet when brown eyes flick down, at her wrists are a familiar weapon. His left hand tightens on the straps of the shield, and the expression that crosses his face, half hidden by the blue cowl, is defensive and a little angry. He's tired of being asked that. Tired of having his legitimacy questioned.

"It's mine." He says simply. "Where did you get those?" A quick motion to her wrists. He can already guess, he's met Sam and the other Steve and the other him - but it's a subtle retaliation. He's always been a little bit petty.

[unmakeme]

"I made them." The inflection is subtle, the barest tension in her voice. If he's very closely tuned to her reaction, he'll probably catch it, and its meaning. They are truly hers. They have always been hers. The same can not be said for the shield, because this is not Steve.

As though driving the point home, her hands clench into fists, the hum of electricity growing louder as the charge intensifies in response. That shield might not be Steve's any more, but seeing anyone else holding it just isn't right. It belongs with Captain America.

[anotheroldsoldier]

He gets the inflection. How can he not? How often has he implied the same things about himself? That he doesn't deserve the shield, that it isn't his. That he's just playing dress-up. The only difference is, it's usually Natasha who insists to him that he's good enough. "Making and owning don't have much to do with each other." It isn't commentary on her gauntlets, but on his shield.

Bucky pulls back the cowl, because this might not be his Natasha, but he wants her to know what she's up against anyway. Though whether or not she recognizes him is up in the air - if she's from the same world as the other Bucky here, they don't look all that much alike. The resemblance is almost familial, like they could be brothers maybe, but they're hardly twins.

"Stand down. You don't have the whole story, and I'm not looking for a fight."

two and a half

[advanced]

Unfortunately, that hunt for privacy that led her to the upper abandoned floors, also leads her to a certain ex-Soldier trying to find a place to hide and recover away from the people wandering around outside in the midst of the power outages and confusion.

He sees her come in and sinks back into the shadows of one of the corners, barely breathing. The Black Widow, he remembers shooting through her, he remembers fighting her. He doesn't want to fight her again. Which is why he's waiting until she gets settled with the book before he tries to sneak away.

It's just a shame that he manages to dislodge a shower of dust from the window he's trying to escape from; if she doesn't notice him before then, she's sure to notice now.

Re: two and a half

[unmakeme]

She's not listening for the noise of anyone else in the space. Not carefully enough to pick up the almost silent hints of someone trying to go unnoticed, anyway. It's pitch dark, and largely undisturbed. No one has any reason to be up here. It's why she's here, after all. It's the entire draw of the place.

The lantern throws a very dim red glow over the space around her, only a few feet of soft diffused illumination. She initially purchased this particular model in order to maintain her night vision in an emergency, but for just reading... even she has to admit that it's creepy. Still, the beacon setting is far too bright. She's going to have to find something better, once crisis pricing isn't making everything ridiculously expensive.

She turns a page, bites into a juicy light pink stone fruit, and then her head snaps up at a shift in the air. There's something about dislodged dust, a certain musty smell. Now that she's looking, she see a dark shadow moving against the wall. Her hand shoots out and her thumb mashes the switch to the lantern as she squeezes her eyes tightly shut. For one brief second, the room is flooded in bright white light, and then she flips the switch the other way, turning it off and opening her eyes to the clearly not actually empty room, her vision still attuned to the darkness.

[advanced]

The bright flare of light is the first indication he has that he's been seen, and he's pretty much blinded by it. Of course that has to be her intent, and it's put him immediately at a disadvantage. He can't fight or escape until his night vision comes back, and until then he has to hide from her.

Not wanting to risk dropping out of the window now, he keeps one hand on the wall and runs at a crouch for the opposite corner, hoping that the shadows will keep him concealed until he can see properly. At the moment it's all spots and frayed edges, no good for actual combat.

He keeps as silent as he can, hoping vainly that she won't locate him.

[unmakeme]

At least his own thoughts aren't insulting her by believing he actually has a shot at staying hidden. It's something.

Now that the red glow is gone, that the entire room is darkened save for the incredibly faint illumination from the city lights in the areas not currently experiencing the blackout, she can see him moving. She still can't see who is creeping along, hugging the wall and trying to avoid the furniture. It's a valiant attempt, very impressive for someone she knows must be functionally blinded right now. Training, perhaps on top of natural skill. Which means she's on alert for potential hostility. There aren't many types of people who are trained for situations like this.

"I know you're there," she says, and then immediately moves several silent steps away, so that anything aimed toward her voice will now be aimed at an empty space. She watches the outline of her visitor for any reaction to being called out.

[advanced]

It's a good thing that she's being cautious about getting immediately involved in a fight as well, because it's giving him time to adjust to the darkness once more. The spots are still there, but the fuzz at the edge of his vision has faded and he's quickly regaining the ability to see properly.

Instead of trying to aim anything at her, he instead moves to back up and attempt to avoid her voice. Unfortunately, because she moves, this ends up with him in her direct path, perfectly visible for the first time.

He freezes, eyes wide and staring at her.

Damn.

one

[signifies]

[ Clark also patrols at odd hours, wearing the suit and cape. Monster activity spikes at night. He doesn't need that much sleep, so it's the perfect time to get some practice with fighting. No one gets hurt.

He's tracking something in the forest. It's big, bipedal, and fast for its size. Clark intends to fly to intercept the moment it starts heading directly for the perimeter. It's not doing much of anything right now.

He's sometimes followed by members of the Guard, but Clark doesn't mind or pay them much attention unless they directly engage him in conversation. He stays out of their way if they want him to stand back: this is their job, after all. Usually, they let him be: it didn't take long for them to realise he was source of the flattened trees and monster remains the morning patrols found. Sometimes the dead monsters have severe burns, others just took a few punches.

So if Natasha was following, he isn't acting like he's noticed. ]

( let me know if anything needs to be changed )

[unmakeme]

Natasha hasn't done much socializing with the other Guard members. None, really. Maybe the idea that they're avoiding her because of the circumstances of her arrival are all in her mind. She doesn't actually know that she got the job she has now because the group tasked with greeting her on her arrival went to their superior immediately following their ass kicking and recommended her. Maybe they just leave her along because it's so clear she's not happy here.

For whatever reason, she doesn't know about Clark.

She sees the disturbance in the trees, and just like Clark, she intends to intercept it before it can reach the perimeter. Not that she has to. It's just one creature, and waiting until it gets in closer to take it out with a ranged weapon would be the smart move. She's still looking to burn off aggression and stress, and heading out to meet the fight head on is a sure fire way to do that. So she does, making for the treeline and hoping for something even half as satisfying as the pack she took down with Ray.

[signifies]

[ Clark spots Natasha, moving purposefully and confidently on the terrain.

There's no one with her and no one nearby following her except him. If she's here deliberately alone, his first thought is that she might not be human. He wouldn't be surprised. Plenty of residents aren't, and he doesn't expect everyone to be forthcoming about it.

He's curious as to what she's going to do, so he follows at a distance, hovering above the trees. There's little moonlight, and very few people look up. ]

[unmakeme]

She's not looking up, no. Her focus is singular. This week has been hell for her, emotional in ways she doesn't want to think about, let alone actually deal with. This is something she knows, something simple. You find an enemy, hit it hard enough and often enough, it stops moving. Simple.

She meets her target where the trees are still thin, providing less in the way of cover. Not that she wants to hide. She meets it head on, batons in hand, knives and guns not even considered. Over too quickly that way. Her first hit is glancing. She jumps off the ground, using a sturdy tree trunk to change direction mid-air, and jabs down hard with one of the batons set to half voltage. It singes fur, deadens a leg temporarily, but all it really does is make the creature angry. Anger is good. Anger to match her own.

[signifies]

[ Long claws extend from the creature's fingers. It bares its teeth.

She's very good. If she'd only had a knife or a gun on her, Clark would place his bets on her and not it. He measures the voltage of those batons with the muscles he can see affected. It's a charge even he might feel.

He watches for now. ]

three

[barksnark]

William's got little to worry about on the crime front. The powers of influence over the mind have skipped him and his brother, but they're inconspicuous enough to rarely ever draw attention to them unless they open their mouths. Not being a victim is hardly the same as never witnessing any of it taking place, though, and it's with half a burger in his mouth that he hears the threats from gruff voices, then an assertive suggestion that they cease and desist.

Natasha's hopes are attended, and criminals become that ideal target she's been looking for. William walks on over to see what - if anything - he can do. If not, there's always this burger to keep him busy while he watches.

[unmakeme]

There's not much that needs doing, no. Natasha doesn't generally go looking for fights she can't win. SH=he's not concerned with the pair of thieves, not concerned with the knives they hold or their insistence that they're not afraid to hurt her. That's good. She's not afraid to hurt them, either, as the first one quickly finds out when her first pass at him has him disarmed and his elbow swiftly dislocated. She could put him down, but she lets him stumble back. Like a cat playing with a mouse, it's not as much fun if it's over quickly.

[barksnark]

Fist closed over his mouth like he just heard (watched) a sick burn, Will grimaces with a sympathetic his for the guy who made a really great mistake. It should become clear that he's more fascinated than anything else; he's seen women do things a lot worse to people they played cat and mouse with. The most extra thing was when they started to eat the other guy.

It's kinda sadistic of her, as ordinary as the fight may be. Full of kung fu skill and shit, but ordinary all the same.

"Oh, damn."

[unmakeme]

His comment takes her attention for just a moment. She is here primarily to protect people, after all. One split second of distraction, one incredibly lucky punch, and the man she's toying with manages to connect with her cheek. Not hard enough to bruise, but more than hard enough to genuinely annoy her. "Oh, fuck you," she growls at him, like she's venting at a cat that's just knocked over a houseplant.

Natasha's next move makes it clear that, up until now, she's been holding back. She jumps off the ground with almost no visible effort, wraps her legs around the man's neck, swings herself around his body, and uses her weight and the built up momentum to bring him down to the ground, smashing his head into the pavement as she does. His buddy is standing by looking stunned, and using the same built up force, she grabs a pipe off the ground and continues up to her feet, bringing it with her and putting the full weight of her entire body behind cracking it against the side of his head.

They're down, probably not dead, but definitely not getting up again any time soon. Just to be sure, she tags them and calls in for a pick-up. Then she turns her attention to William. "Yes?"

[barksnark]

William's brows are creased by the time she meets him with her gaze, still scrutinizing how their bodies dropped to the ground, trying to replay the moments that preceded the fall. All in all it was a pretty damn cool thing to watch. He's almost sorry that there's no one left for more ass-kicking entertainment.

Except there's him. That's the reason why he's lifting both hands, like she might as well have yelled freeze.

"Please don't kick my ass."