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

[advanced]

Another one. That makes Sam, the strange man from the market, and now Romanoff who all mentioned two years. Maybe she remembers an airport in his future too? That hasn't happened for him, it's barely been a few months since he fled from the Potomac, he doesn't have nearly enough pieces of himself to deal with how well they know him in the future.

"I didn't ask him to do that. He shouldn't care, I'm not who he thinks I am."

[unmakeme]

"You're right. You didn't ask him to do that, and you don't owe him anything." Steve has a lot invested in this, and it's important to him, but it doesn't change the fact that Bucky doesn't have to go along with it. "He still cares about you. He won't hurt you. If he's the one you're running from..." She weighs the balance of his personal safety against her friendship, against Steve's feelings, and she decides for the greater good. "If I promise not to call him, will you stay here?"

She's worried about him out there in the chaos, yes, but she's also worried about anyone who might run into him. The more she observes his reaction to her, the more obvious it is that he's still stuck in the miasma of his programming. He's a danger to those around him. In here, he's safe, but the city is also safe from him.

[advanced]

It should be obvious by the way that his eyes narrow slightly that Steve is definitely one of the major reasons that he's running. Not the only one, not by a long way, but he's not ready to have all the conversations and deal with all the things that Steve will want to throw his way.

He shakes his head.

"I'm not staying here. If you're not planning to keep me trapped or fight me, then step aside."

He's testing what she's saying, whether she really is on his side or whether she'll change her tune and decide that it's for the best to keep him here if he wants it or not.

[unmakeme]

"You were going to stay here." He'd been hiding in the dark when she came in, hunkered down, she assumes. "You'd planned on staying here, now you want to leave, but do you really have a place to go? The city isn't safe right now. The blackouts are unpredictable, there have been riots, looting. You would be a danger to yourself. You would be a danger to others."

She doesn't want to trap him, or fight him. She wants him to decide to stay on his own. "Here, you're a danger to no one. You can eat." Hopefully he's hungry and that will carry some weight. "You can get some sleep. You look tired." He looks dead on his feet, really, but she's pretty sure he knows that.

[advanced]

His fingers twitch when she mentions that he could be a danger to other people, but otherwise he gives no outward sign that she might be getting to him. He just knows that he can't stay here now, not when that would mean one of the Avengers having his location, especially not this particular Avenger.

"I'm not hungry." That is pretty much a lie, he's always hungry. It's the stupid bastardised serum, it makes him need a whole hell of a lot of food, just like Steve, but he's good at ignoring that hunger. "I told you to step aside. It doesn't matter what I was going to do, this location is compromised now."

[unmakeme]

Natasha sighs. "There's no reason to lie." He's obviously hungry. Even if she couldn't draw a reasonable conclusion from what she knows of Steve's metabolism and the horrors Bucky was subjected to in an effort to recreate the super soldier. He looks hunted, tired, hungry, feral. "Especially not about something as easily fixed as being hungry."

She still doesn't move. Natasha Romanoff has been called many things unfairly, but 'stubborn' is a distinction she's definitely earned. "By that logic, this entire city is compromised now that I know you're here. If you leave, I can't be sure you're not posing a threat somewhere. That means I have to go after you. There's a lot in your mind that doesn't belong, holes you need to fill in. You could react in unpredictable ways. If you're here, I don't have to worry about you. I have no reason to hurt you. In fact, I have a very good reason to want to keep you safe. Logically, the best place for you to be right now is here. It's warm and safe and guarantees that I'm not looking for you."

[advanced]

She's not wrong. She does know that he's here now and that means that wherever he goes is more compromised than it was, Romanoff is good at what she does and she might even be capable of tracking him down. But that's still a preferable option to being somewhere that she can definitely pin him down.

"You don't have to look for me if I stay here, you'd know where I was."

He was just pointing that out.

"I'm not staying somewhere that one of you can find me, I don't want anything to do with any of you. I just want to be left alone."

[unmakeme]

"I think you know that's not going to happen. Especially with the city in a panic. I can't, in good conscience, just let you leave. Besides, you're hurt." She's not certain, but she's reasonably sure. He's moving more slowly, he hasn't attacked her yet, and it may be entirely in her imagination that he's favouring one leg, or she might just be that good. Tough to say, but his reaction will tell her a whole lot.

She's hedging her bets. "If I'm not looking for you, then I'm not annoyed. I have no reason to call in backup. If we're here, then I'm reading my book and eating my food and, most importantly, it's just me. That's the choice you need to make now, and I think you know it. Do you want to have to deal with just me, or with me and everyone I can reasonably get on your trail? That's not a small number of people, and Steve is one of them."

[advanced]

Of course she takes this tactic. She's not like Steve or some of the others, given to pleading or appealing to the Bucky they think is still underneath, she knows where to hit that hurts and she takes that advantage. She's damn right that he doesn't want Steve pursuing him, and that he isn't going to be at the top of his game with his leg broken the way it is.

His scowl grows a little more pronounced, words rough. "So I'm your prisoner, that's what you're saying." His stance is shifting just a bit, ready for a fight. No matter how much he doesn't want Steve to find him, he wants to be a prisoner even less. "How long are you planning to keep me here?"

[unmakeme]

"If that's the way you need to catalogue it in your mind to be comfortable with it, sure, but that's not how I think of it." She cocks her head to the side, considering things, what he knows of her and what he'll believe. "If Steve were hurt and insisting he were fine, I'd make him stay put, too. If he wouldn't listen to me, I'd call in other people who care about him to force him to do what's best for his own health and safety. If he also posed a threat to people around him? I'd tie him up if that's what I needed to do to make him stay. I wouldn't hurt him, though. Keeping someone in one place to punish them and keeping someone in one place to protect them are two very different things."

She shrugs, and she also shifts. Not into a defensive stance. He is hurt, and she doesn't need to prepare for a fight. If it comes to it, she'll just fight. "I don't think I'll stop you from running, no - but make no mistake, you will be running. You won't find rest, you won't be able to heal, you will be fleeing and I will be pursuing. I don't know about you, but that sounds exhausting to me. I'll do it, but I'd rather not. I'd rather be here, safe and warm." Doesn't that sound so much nicer?

[advanced]

It's exactly the same thing as far as he's concerned. It doesn't matter the reason, people can spout all sorts of bullshit reasons to make someone feel better about what's happening, but the end result is the same. Prisoner to be punished, or prisoner to be protected, either way he still can't leave without being pursued, and his ability to choose what happens to him is taken from him.

"You didn't answer my question."

His voice and his expression are forbidding. He doesn't want to stay here and she's behaving in the worst way that he feared the Avengers would, the threat of being trapped like a physically cloying thing over his head.

[unmakeme]

"I am planning to stay with you at least until morning. The city isn't in as much of a panic with the lights on. The choice is entirely yours. You can run. You're hurt and alone, I'm fit and have backup. You won't be able to shake me. I think we both know that." She nods at his leg, the one he's favouring, and raises an eyebrow. "No matter what, you are stuck with me until morning. The choice you have to make is who else you want to involve, and I really wish you'd make it so I can know if I'm making dinner or not. The power and hot water in my apartment are both still on, if you'd like to go somewhere more private. I don't have a roommate. You could get cleaned up. Or we can stay here, and you can have more open space."

[advanced]

That's answer enough to his question. She's not going to make him trust her acting like this, and he's not going to hang around to be trapped. Not even if there's warmth and food on offer.

He moves all of a sudden, going for the window. He's going at full pace, using his metal arm to smash the glass as he propels his way through it and drops like a stone to the street below. Maybe she'll follow him, and maybe he's not as fast as he could be with his leg hurt, but he's still pretty fast as he runs for it.

[unmakeme]

Natasha just stands there for a moment, staring after him. Then she sighs. "Fuck."

So much for her quiet evening, and she's got a grappling line from the Bite on her right wrist sunk in the floor as she jumps out the window after him. Should have just knocked him out, set the leg, made him comfortable on one of the couches. Not that it would have earned her any points, but he didn't trust her to begin with, and at least he'd have gotten a decent night's sleep.