riverviewlogs | everything's on fire

Entry tags:

everything's on fire

who: Everyone!
what: The residential building is on fire
when: ~2am, August 23rd
where: The Residential building
warnings: Fire, destruction of property, injury, general warnings for crisis situations

It's a reasonably quiet night, pleasantly dry with a slight breeze. Almost nice, for those that enjoy the hours after midnight long before dawn starts to creep on the horizon. Right until it isn't, when the air changes, and there's the scent of heat that promises smoke. In most places it starts with a flash of blue light that arcs from floor to floor as energy pulses through the building, and there's a crack of sound that follows. The power dies for a moment, and if you're one of the unlucky ones, the light that follows is a literal spark in the dark, burning to life in bright orange-red, yielding heat and smoke and trouble. The energy surge doesn't just hit the lights, but sparked flames that burst to life, and they catch quickly, spreading.

The worst of it starts on the ninth floor, where the smoke and the beginning of heat starts moments before the surge. The fire spreads faster there, people starting to startle awake and realize what's happening as the flames crackle. Eventually there's an announcement on the Network, both alerting people to what's happening and trying to organize both those that are willing to help and those that need it.

Some areas are untouched, while others are ravaged badly, reduced to ashes and crumbling ceilings, so watch your step. There's chaos, but through it there's people doing what they can to help each other, and the official fire services show up to help control the blaze. After that, it's just a matter of repairing the damage that's been done, rebuilding and putting things back together, seeing what's been lost and what was saved.

Even later, people start putting the pieces together, and there's the official investigation into what might have caused a fire like that in the first place.

[ooc: As promised, the residential building is on fire! OOC plotting post is here if anyone wants to work out some last minute plans before diving in. Plotting post also includes the relevant details. Elsewise, just top level and mingle. Try not to get burned too badly. :) Good luck!]

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"Alright," Ava nods, and moves into position. A firm grip on the doorframe and then easily wrapping her legs around the man's torso. If Natasha is watching, she might see echoes of her own style in how Ava moves. The way she shifts her hips as her legs wrap around his torso, the angle maximized to give her leverage and give him as little to work with as possible, the particular way her legs wrap around him, braced so she wont lose the grip.

She ignores the man's complaints, but she can't help a slight sense of relief when Natasha finally manages to shut down his protests. She's not particularly petty, but it does make it easier to focus, and in turn means the sooner they can have him on his way out of the building and she can be helping someone else. She looks at Natasha and nods in agreement.

"Ready when you are."

Natasha notices the similarity, but now is hardly the time to dwell on it or pick it apart. It's just the vaguest sense, the girl's body knowing how to position itself before she can move her hands to help guide it. Between the heat of the fire and her own racing heart, maybe she's experiencing it incorrectly. Maybe her hands do get there before, and she just can't feel them. Wouldn't surprise her.

The man, realizing that nothing he can say will stop them, is currently cursing a blue streak. "Count to three," he demands of Natasha.

She places her hands on his shin, grip firm. "One," she says, evenly, and then yanks and twists, applying just enough pressure until she hears that pop and crack. He screams, which doesn't surprise her, and bucks in Ava's grip. One hand flails up as though to hit the girl in the face, and Natasha just wraps one of her wet face cloths around his knee, tightly, ignoring his protests. "I'm not taking you down," she tells him. "The fire isn't in the far stairwell yet. It's a straight shot down. When you find the medics, tell them the wrap on your knee needs to come off. It's too tight, but it will keep it from dislocating again.

For her part, Ava is focused on the task at hand. The man they're trying to help is cursing, demanding a countdown that Ava is all but certain that Natasha isn't going to hold to. She holds him firm, keeping him in place as Natasha grabs the man's shin. His struggles don't displace her, no matter how small and light she might be, she's stronger than she seems and with her grip on the doorway it's easy enough to keep him from shaking her off even as he screams.

He swings at her, but Ava just shifts slightly so that flailing fist doesn't manage to connect. She doesn't release him until Natasha's wrapped his knee, sliding up to her feet so that he can make his way down the stairs. Ava isn't about to walk him down, either.

Truth is that as committed as she is to making sure everyone's out safe, she feels a little less shaky with her here. Given how her interactions with Bucky's Natasha had been, she's not particularly inclined to talk about any of it, especially not in the middle of all of this.

"You want some help?" She offers, in Natasha's direction, once she's settled back on her feet. "I was trying to get people out of here anyway."

"You should get out of here," Natasha says. "This building might not make it through the night, and these floors are getting increasingly unstable. There's an entire section of the one above us that's fallen down to this one. That's what had him pinned. Big baby." Still, that guy being a total pain in the ass doesn't make this building any less of a death trap.

Natasha pulls loose one of the long strips of curtain material she's got looped at the back of her belt and holds it out to Ava. It's no longer sopping wet, thanks to the heat, but it's still wet enough to be some protection. "Wrap this around your face and go."

"Not until everyone else is out. Like I said, I have training, I can help." Her voice is firm, confident, but there's a spark of something a little off in her blue eyes. It's the fire, the ashes and smoke that choke in her lungs, and how she still remembers those big feelings, overwhelming, feeling alone in the middle of chaos.

"More people helping means we get everyone out faster, hopefully before anything collapses." She doesn't, however, protest against the scrap of cloth. Her powers would protect her, but that means using them, and she's not entirely sure if she's so adverse to it at the moment out of guilt or because she's trying to punish herself. She'll deal with those thoughts later. Once everyone's safe. Once she's made sure she hadn't killed anyone.

"Training as a fire-fighter? Because if not, you've got no business being here." Never-mind that Natasha has no training as a fire-fighter, herself. She's already moving down the hall again, checking rooms, looking for anyone left straggling or trapped. "If something happens to you, it just means that someone has to come in after you. You're--" She doesn't actually say that Ava is a child, but she is. Natasha knows that doesn't always mean much. Still. It should. "You need to get somewhere safe. Smoke inhalation will take you down quickly, and it's a horrible way to go. This is bad. It's getting worse."

She can hear the word that Natasha doesn't say, and in a different situation she might have said something about it, because she hates when people treat her like a child. She had any piece of being a child stripped from her in so many ways, given so much knowledge that means she can't even fake it well, lived through too much she can't escape. The least she could get is people not acting like she's lesser just because she's nineteen.

But she's already moving with Natasha, down the hall, helping check rooms. She debates silently for a moment, between faking at being aloof, or giving her a piece of something true in hopes it will maybe keep her from trying to escort her out. Or worse: get Tony to do it.

"SHIELD. Operations Academy, right until Hydra happened." It's not a lie, but it's not the whole truth, either. But she certainly seems young for a field agent, even one in training. "I'm not a liability, and the people still in here need all the help they can get."

Natasha sighs deeply, but if there's one thing she knows about the young SHIELD agents who truly believed in the cause, right up until the end, it's that they won't be swayed. So, in the end, she nods. "Give me your phone," she says as they check an empty room, holding her hand out for it expectantly. They don't have a lot of time to spare, but this will be quick, and it's the only way she's going to let this slip of a girl shadow her.

She's hardly going to discount someone's ability just because of their age, she knows better than anyone what a young girl desperate to survive is capable of. SHIELD does not run their operations the way Red Room did, though, and being under the impression that she knows the training that Ava has had means she thinks she had a very good idea of what she can and can't handle.

There's only a slight hesitation before she unlocks it and hands over her phone. "Here," she hands it over without complaint. Ava is pretty careful, doesn't entirely trust the network most of the time (she knows her way around technology enough to know the potentials there) but there are secrets. Texting Steve after they'd sparred and he realized the echo in how she fought, down to her username. But, she trusts Natasha implicitly, and she's trying to avoid making this into an argument, as much as possible.

She knows that lying to Natasha is a bad idea, but this is more just.. not telling her the whole truth. Not that she's trying to hide it, exactly- just a little- but just that there's a fire and they don't really have the time to talk about the horrors of Moscow training programs at the moment. At least, that's the excuse she's telling herself. Later.

Natasha doesn't care much about the contents of the phone. She's in the settings, Ava's phone in one hand and her own in the other, linking them for communication. A few quick adjustments as she crosses the room to a little charging area set up on the dresser, grabbing a bluetooth headset after putting her own phone away. A little more fussing, and she's handing both back to Ava. "All right. If you were with SHIELD up until Hydra, then you know the code name Black Widow, and you're familiar with field protocols. I'm the senior agent. We stay in contact at all times. When it's too dangerous, and I call evac, we're out."

She doesn't actually mention the 'or' in this situation, but the implication probably hints strongly at dragging her out and possibly cuffing her to something to keep her at a safe distance. "Come on. Last four rooms on this floor that I haven't checked, then we can clear the stairwell again."

"Yes," she affirms. She doesn't add just how well she knows that code name, everything it means to her, that they'd let her have the codename Red Widow. Her shadow, her strange almost-mirror. But she keeps it quiet, because this isn't the situation, and even if it was, she's not sure if telling her is really the right choice.

Questions for later.

"Alright," she agrees, even if that last point might get sticky when it comes down to it. She knows this is her fault, she refuses to leave anyone in here. She wont let anyone die. She knows there are others, that Tony's working his way from the top, but it's still a flare of stubborn determination. Even if she can hear the or there.

But for the moment, she falls into step with Natasha, alert and sharp and an easy way about her as she moves. Even if the flames still rub her raw in so many ways.

Natasha, for her part, is very resolutely not letting it break her down completely, not letting her PTSD put her into the memories of fires from her past, all the way down the line to the one that started her on the life she leads now. No, she's focused on the people, on those still left inside.

She tells Ava to take the remaining two rooms on the left while she clears the ones on the right. She clears hers quickly, finding them completely empty. "Ava. I'm clear on this side. Find anything?"

"Clear here, too," she calls as she checks her rooms. She focuses on the task at hand, checking for people, any signs of someone in trouble. She has ways of checking, but with the fire she's not sure how reliable they'd be, and she doesn't really trust her powers right now, so the less she can use them here, the better. The last thing anyone needs is her making this worse.

"No one here," she affirms, moving fast, trying not to linger, to not think about the heat and the smoke and the way she can hear it creaking. Just keep moving.

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