sixthiterationlogs | ota; three more shall take its place

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ota; three more shall take its place

WHO: Natasha Romanoff
WHERE: The Town Hall
WHEN: November 14th into November 15th
OPEN TO: Everyone! This is a mingle log.
WARNINGS: Description of injuries/probably descriptions of violence.
STATUS: Open to All

Natasha is up at sunrise, scrounging down in the inn for spare scraps of cloth and some charcoal, enough of it to write three, brief, notes. One for Clint, one for Tony, and one for Sam and Steve, because the last two live together and it would be a waste of time for her to leave them separate notes, even if she probably should. Nicer, that way. But she has somewhere to be and she wants to be there and back here before sunset, and she also doesn’t want any of them following her. Clint won’t; he knows she’s capable and if she’s gone off on her own then it’s something she needs to do on her own. Tony also probably won’t -- in fact, she’s only telling him as a courtesy, because despite everything, he still believes they’re friends and she’s in no position to dissuade him from that notion just yet. She assumes Sam will feel the same as Clint, but Steve-- Steve is stubborn to a fault, and if she told him face to face where she was going, he’d insist on coming with her. And she can’t. Whatever it is between them, this re-kindling of their friendship, is still on tenterhooks, fragile and possibly easily broken. It doesn’t really occur to her that this might have a negative effect on that; she’s too concerned with getting her note written and handed out and then leaving.

The deed itself takes her fifteen minutes. All four men live in different areas, and she slides the cloth under their doors and heads right for the woods. She doesn’t have a map -- map making isn’t her skill, but she memorized the general location and direction of the ruins, and she picks her way through the timber, using trails when she finds them and strutting through the underbrush when she can’t. She doesn’t worry about tracks. No one is going to follow her. It takes her less than the day to get there.

It takes her another two days to return, limping and injured and sick as she is, but sheer determination has kept her going before. She’s been hungrier than this. She’s been worse than this. A bloody stump is a flesh wound, she thinks. She limps into the village at sundown, leaning on the spear like it’s the only thing keeping her upright (because it is). Her left eye is the central piece to a violently purple bruise blossoming around it and her cheekbone, and she’s favoring her left leg. Her first stop is the inn to find Miss Kate; she can tell everyone at lunch that Natasha wants to talk to everyone as soon as possible, so if they could please meet up at the town hall tomorrow afternoon after lunch, that’d be great, thanks.

Her next stop is her room, where she sheds the backpack, her clothes, and after she’s curled up into her bed, her consciousness, too.

The doesn't wake up until the sun is high in the sky, her head pounding less hard, and while she still can't put weight on her left knee, she can at least stand up without wanting to vomit because the world is spinning like a top around her. She makes it to the town hall with her backpack on one shoulder, the spear resuming it's post as her crutch, and when she arrives, she hoists herself up on the table. The backpack she unzips and pulls out a large gold disc, setting it on the table beside her. The spear is laid across her lap, and she gazes out at the crowd before her.

She's a spy; public speaking has never been something she's been fond of unless she has the upper hand, but here, she's as out of her depth as the people before her. She's certain she's not going to have the answers these people are going to want. But she has to try.

"I ran into a hydra in the ruins. The floor is open to questions."

(( OOC: I'll have a comment for mingling/questions for Natasha below, but feel free to leave your own toplevels/etc. I'll have a separate header for closed threads if anyone wants to do one on one discussing with Natasha about what she found! ))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Natasha remains seated on the table, answering questions as she hears them. Any attempt to remove the spear from her person will be met with swift retribution; she's injured, not dead, and she's not letting it go any time soon.

When Sam had received the note he hadn't thought much of it. Natasha ran solo missions all the time back home and she was USED to not having abilities to rely on. The woman could take down an army if given the right intell and planning. Hell, she'd gone toe-to-toe with several very powerful Avengers and come out ahead. That wasn't to say that Sam hadn't thought about what could happen to her out there -- they were still in unfamiliar territory.

He was relieved when he got word that she was back and even though he'd heard she was injured he chalked it up to people over-reacting.

Sam was then in for a rude surprise when he caught sight of Natasha later that day to hear about the information she'd gathered. He was torn between yelling at her for going off on her own and wanting to pull her out of the inn and help her treat her injuries. They looked worse than even he had prepared himself for and what was bad was that with Natasha's ability to hide things, he couldn't even be sure that she wasn't also carefully masking some injuries. What stopped him though was his own guilt for having not ignored her note and following her dumb ass into the woods. Between all the animal bodies, the misplaced people, and various other events he should have known better than to just let her go off alone. But he was going to have to live with that, wasn't he?

He settled for glaring at her with a look that clearly read, 'Dammit Natasha.' He'd have to corner her for a "talk" later, but for now he collected himself and tried to play the professional. He could sulk in his guilt and berate Natasha for her solo act later.

"I have a question for you," he finally spoke, his words biting, "What the hell do you mean there's a hydra in the ruins? What happened out there? And what's with the giant doubloon"

Sam's look isn't lost on her; even as she pointedly doesn't return his gaze until he asks the question. She shifts, pain flickering briefly across her face as she dislodges her knee from its comfortable position so she can face him. Her tone is cool and collected, and she's very aware that later, likely when they're alone, she's going to get an earful. But one of the things she appreciated about Sam is that, like her, like a spy, he's able to compartmentalize to get the job done. And the big fucking Greek monster a day’s journey away takes precedence over whatever injury she has. That's what they need to focus on. Not her.

“I mean exactly that,” she says, letting out a sigh. “The ruins themselves reminded me of the ones outside of Rome, and when I found this,” and she gestures to the disc next to her, “I was attacked. It made no noise until I knew it was there.”

She picks the disc up, reaches out so he can take it. “I don't know what this is. That's why I grabbed it. There are enough brilliant minds from all over time here. Someone has to know.”

At this point Sam wouldn't be sure if he'd take spy as a compliment any more. This is more a skill he'd picked up in the near six months he'd been here. You couldn't focus on all the little terrible things, it'd become too much. You had to stay focused on the bigger picture -- that was how they'd get out of here. Or at least that was what he liked to tell himself.

"A hydra...just when I thought this place couldn't get weirder," he muttered. Sam moves closer to look at the disc. He doubts he'll understand anything about it, but he wants to check it out all the same. "Where was it specifically in the ruins? Like on a pedestal or something?" He looks up at Natasha, "We need to get as many details down as we can--figure this out." It's the biggest escalation since the animal attacks started. What did the disk mean and what was up with there being a hydra of all things? Was any of it connected?

He takes the disc from her and turns it over in his hand, "Definitely getting an Indiana Jones vibe."

The same ruins as the ones where he and Jo found the cache of weapons, he wonders, or if it's some other set of ruins somewhere that he hasn't heard about yet. But that's not his first question right now.

"Aren't hydras fictional?"

Asks Captain Hook. Who has met mermaids, and will tell anyone who will listen that kraken are real. But yet he draws the line at hydras.

Natasha pauses, squinting at him for a long moment before replying.

"You crawled out of a well from whatever world you came from to get here, and you're worried about whether or not something is real?" Her eyebrow is raised about as high as it can go— but her question is rhetorical and she doesn't wait for an answer before continuing.

"Fictional or not, it's what I saw."

She does have a point, and he knows it. There are places where he is considered fictional, and apparently a lot different from the reality.

"Is it still there, or were you able to defeat it?" Because if it's still there, they should probably put a group together and go deal with it.

( Put your top levels for closed threads with Natasha here!)

It's hardly the sort of announcement one is used to or expects.

Given her past, the very word makes Peggy sit up with attention, worry flickering over her face. "A hydra," she echoes, giving her a wary look and wondering what on earth she means. At this point, she refuses to rule out anything, which means that it could very well be a mythological creature, but it could also be a person and if it is, that bodes very poorly for those who have a history with the agency. "Where have you been?" she asks, a touch firmly and overly concerned. After her own near-stranded time in the canyon, she's on high alert and this isn't helping.

"And what on earth did you find?"

“Greek ruins,” she says with a grimace, reaching up to tuck a stray strand of hair from her face away behind her ear. “And before you worry,” Natasha continues with a bit of a smirk, “I mean the monster. Not the organization. The irony is not lost on me. The bruise came from me falling down a flight of stairs.”

Peggy stares at her worriedly, that feeling not evaporating anytime soon as she reaches out to inspect the wound, fingers gentle against Natasha's cheek before she lets go to focus on the more pressing item at hand. "I'm not sure hearing that it's a monster is any better," she points out. "Can you describe it? Have someone sketch it perhaps?" She's sure Steve could manage to do them an accurate depiction, given something to draw on.

More of concern, though, is what it means. "Do you think it's going to come here? Hunt?"

Natasha actually pauses at that last part, and she's not dismissing the idea of having someone draw it out, but she's not going to answer it just yet. Because she's just realized something.

"I don't know," she says slowly, brow furrowed as she thinks. Her memory of what happened directly after she injured herself falling down a flight of stone stairs is fuzzy, but one thing does stand out, now that she's purposefully thinking about it.

"It stopped attacking me when I fell down a flight of steps — and I never saw it again. It didn't even try to attack me as I was leaving."

Peggy listens attentively, her mind already drawing a map of events as she tries to work out precisely what happened. She's still worried that something is going to come at them in the middle of the night, but more to the point, if there is a creature roaming around, wouldn't it explain some things? "Claws? Teeth?" she prods. "Anything that looks like it might have been capable of causing the destruction to the animal population?"

It's terrible, but part of Peggy simply wants to have a concrete answer that she can turn to in order to explain things. It might not be perfect, but it's better than assuming one of them has done it.

"This thing was too big," Natasha replies. It's a cold comfort and she knows that, gives Peggy a small, apologetic smile for it. "Whatever is mutilating those animals is different — This thing was big enough that it wouldn't have left anything, if it was even inclined to."

She sighs, closing her eyes for a brief moment. "And, weirdly enough, it didn't cause any property damage there, either. I don't know if it was just that nimble, but— it somehow didn't take out any of the walls when it came after me. It always went around them or over them. Not through."

So there's still that mystery afoot, plaguing Peggy's thoughts and keeping her up at night. Her eyes narrow as she takes in what Natasha is saying, including the part where it hasn't come here to eat them or torment them, and a thought occurs to her that she doesn't want to speak out loud just yet. If she does, it goes against her trust in Natasha, but Peggy's found it difficult to let loose her suspicions in any event, the perils of being a spy and not being able to trust everyone.

"There was no rubble? If it was that big, wouldn't it have caused some sort of collision with even a few stones or branches broken or something?" she asks.

Sam had found the note under their door, and handed it off to Steve, who'd read it, nodded and pocketed it before heading out the front door for the day. Not to go after Natasha, because he may not be a spy but he can still read between the lines just fine: he wasn't wanted or needed on this expedition. Maybe it's for the best, he told himself; he'd really only been a dead weight at Peggy's back, all muscle without the strength to back it up, and he'd put her life in danger. For the best doesn't make him any happier about it, though.

Sam had seemed more sanguine, and that made some sense to Steve. He'd never worked with Natasha before coming on board, doesn't know that they were supposed to be past this. Like hell he'd let her run missions on her own. He's never kept anyone on a short leash, has always let the people he's leading spread out, extend their strengths to where they're needed, and if that means they sometimes spread far, well, they none of them need Steve looking over their shoulder to do what needs to be done. There's a world of difference between that and Natasha deliberately putting herself beyond his reach or backup, in a place they've yet to comprehend, with nothing for Steve to show for it except a goddamned scrap of fabric in his pocket with what amounts to a 'bbl, don't follow me' in charcoal.

He doesn't care what she wants by the time the third night falls and there's still no Natasha. It's well past the point where he could live with himself if anything's happened to her, and whatever he'd hoped to tell her by following what she'd made implicit is lost even to him. He'll set out the next morning, but he walks to the inn in the dark to gather some food, and it's there Kate tells him Natasha already returned at dusk and is asleep in her room. He nods, thanks her and leaves the inn.

He arrives early to the town hall; he's forgone lunch entirely and so wasn't there for the announcement, but Kate told him about that too, last night. He's hoping to speak with Natasha before everyone else arrives, but is glad he doesn't get to, because when he does see her it drives him to distraction, staring at her long before she focuses the rest of the room's attention so thoroughly on her with the news. Steve speaks up when he has something to contribute to the flow of discussion and fear that follows, but it's her room, and so he mostly listens. He keeps his distance, too, while she and Peggy speak, looking away on a swallow when Peggy touches her cheek.

"You should get back to the inn," he says as he approaches her afterward. His eyes only don't move to the bruise over her eye — and won't go to any of her injuries now — because he'd taken such thorough stock of them while her attention had been on the room.

He's angry. She can see it in the set of his jaw and the crease in his forehead when he sets sight on her in the town hall. If she were a cowardly person, she'd have refused to look at him the entire time the discussion was taking place, gaze skipping over that part of the room like it didn't exist at all. Natasha may be a lot of things, but a coward isn't one of them, and she treats him like she does Sam — acknowledges his look, accepts that she's going to get some kind of talking to later, and focuses on the matter at hand. The discussion goes on long enough. By the time she and Peggy part, she's tired, but she's not letting it show, because there's still Steve to contend with.

And, with the way he's standing, contend is the right answer. He won't show his anger, not here in public, and she's grateful for that, even as she isn't. She's not in the mood for a lecture, and she doubts she ever will be. But he's stubborn and won't let her alone until he's said his peace. Besides. His suggestion really isn't one. Natasha slides off her perch, zips the disc up into her backpack and plants the spear like a crutch, slipping her pack onto her shoulder.

"That was that plan," she says, her tone carefully neutral in a way that says she knows what's about to happen. There's no need to ask if he's going to come with her, and she doesn't wait to see if he follows her when she starts moving. She knows him. He will. The walk is a lot farther than she should probably going on her knee (although she's thankful for the little things, like the fact it's not broken, just bruised and swollen, because a break would be almost impossible to heal properly here), so it takes her longer than it should and the air between them grows more tense with every step. By the time they make it to the inn, she's about ready to turn on him and tell him to spit it out, but she stays silent, making her way up the stairs towards her tiny closet of a room.

The spear she puts next to the door frame, the pack set down next to it, and she limps her way over to the bed, sitting on it, leaning forward to untie her shoes. There's pain in her ribs. She ignores it, in favor of speaking to him.

"Out with it."

She doesn't need to show that she's tired for Steve to know it. He's been in plenty of scraps in his time, and the last time he looked like her — well, thankfully she doesn't have a bullet in her gut, but that hadn't been the only thing he'd needed a good three days to sleep off before he'd gotten out of that hospital bed. He'd watched her on the television mounted on the wall, though, seen her protect him and, in Sam's words, tell the government exactly where they could shove it. Now here they are, and he can't figure out for the life of him what changed.

He broods on this and more as they walk, Steve slowing his pace for her but not offering to help because she sure as hell hasn't wanted it so far. By the time they make it to her room it's all kind of bottlenecked in his throat, not moving past it but too hard to swallow down. He doesn't know where to start. He doesn't imagine there's anything he has to say that she can't anticipate, and far from a comfort it's just as helpless a feeling as he's known since she took off. So for a few seconds after she sits down and speaks he can only cross his arms in a futile effort to contain some of it, watching her take off her shoes. Voice low, he finally says:

"Just tell me what you were thinking."

Edited (typo) 2016-11-27 07:29 (UTC)

She huffs out a small laugh that ends in a sharp intake of breath as she sits back up. She doesn't move, otherwise — somehow she's pretty sure that if she were to grab her side like instinct demands, he'd just get more angry, and he's already angry enough. Instead, she smirks a little, tilts her head to the side in thought, and doesn't look at him, kicking her shoes off towards the chest near her bed.

"I was thinking I'd be back by nightfall with a funny story to tell," she says dryly, reaching up to touch the bruise on the side of her face. She winces a little — not that she's surprised it's still tender, but. She'd been hoping. She looks up at him, the smirk on her face fading when she sees him. Damn.

He meets her eyes when she looks up, and no, he's not laughing, though he thinks she should've known better by now if she'd expected otherwise. His back is to the door, the strip of floor where he's standing between it and the foot of the bed the only real room for him. There's nothing else to do with the hurt of that but to hold it tightly in his posture, in the tension in his arms and spine, not ameliorated by the way the light coming through the window behind her sets her hair ablaze, shadowing the rest of her face to match the bruise, softening the edges of it. She shouldn't be laughing either, and he's not really fooled that it's anything but a brush-off specifically for his benefit.

"You were gone for more than three days, Natasha." He doesn't tell her that he knows exactly how much more than, that he can figure it down to the hour he'd guessed she had left. The strain only doesn't show on his face because it's too pushed out by the anger. Or maybe it's not; he doesn't know, and he's three-plus days past caring. Apparently it doesn't matter either way if he gives a damn about her. "You want me to ask for help, but it doesn't go the other way around, huh? Because it seemed pretty easy to tell the rest of us we could go to hell."

Edited (typooo) 2016-12-01 08:54 (UTC)

She glances briefly to the closed door behind him, partly to escape the intensity of his gaze (though it's been pointed, like this, at her before; at least he's not slamming her into a wall repeatedly this time), partly to double check. He'd been planning for this, that she's not going to take what he's said lying down (so to speak), and while her first instinct is to tell him to leave, that she's very rarely in a mood to be lectured, she knows he won't and it'd just add another layer to the argument that already has too many. This isn't going to be a discussion like last time. He's angry and it's palpable and it's also contagious.

Because now? Now she's angry, too.

She can't stand, but she can sit up straight, and she looks him in the eye with the cool fury she'd had beaten into her long ago — never let them see you angry, Natalia, unless you need them to use that. She waits before responding, not because she's trying to figure out what to say, but because she wants to make him sweat a little while he thinks about what he just said. He's right. She's not happy about it. And it has nothing to do with his hypocrisy.

"If that's what you think this is, then clearly there's still things you don't understand about me," she says quietly, carefully. "I was wrong to assume you did. I apologize."

He lifts his chin a little at that, but he also looks away, less a show of his anger than just— taking the hit. It's reeling back from an uppercut to the jaw, and he's sure she can read it; what he doesn't know is if she meant to be cruel, or if she'd just gotten lucky, and that's part of the problem. He's afraid she's right, as badly as he doesn't want her to be. As much as he can't find it in himself to accept that defeat.

Still, he needs to take those couple seconds. He swallows and lets his eyes go back to her, passing briefly over the wallpaper, her trunk, the water basin without really seeing them. Fine, she got in a hit, but he won't look away from her again.

"Then explain it to me, and don't be smart about it this time," he says. "From where I'm standing it looks like you think you're on your own again. You're damn lucky you aren't worse off than this, 'cause I could've brought you back, but—" Admitting helplessness in any situation isn't exactly Steve's forte, and now is no different, so he just drops his arms to his sides instead.

Edited 2016-12-06 09:56 (UTC)

Natasha takes a deep breath and closes her eyes, more to stave off the budding headache she can feel radiating from behind her bruised eye. The light streaming in through the window is only making it worse and she doesn't answer right away, just does her best to stand up and limp the half foot to the window to get the curtains mostly closed before she all but collapses back on the bed. Which is probably doing her no favors right now, but she's made it, now she's gotta sleep in it.

She hadn't been trying to be cruel. Cruelty was an unfortunate side effect of her pointing out what seemed to be base fact, that he clearly couldn't fathom why she did this, without weighing the risks, because if he did understand her, he'd know she had, had deemed them nothing she couldn't handle, and went. There's always the chance something you don't or can't plan for will happen. Natasha has never let that stop her from undertaking dangerous missions before. She's not going to let it stop her here, not if she can find the answers everyone is desperately seeking. She gives herself a second to readjust and then opens her eyes to look at him. Her cold tone is gone, replaced with the defeated embers of the fire of anger extinguished. She isn't conceding either-- but she is still exhausted.

“I'm well aware of the extent of my luck,” she says. “You can prepare for anything but that doesn't mean you prepare for everything. I wasn't being smart — I genuinely had no indication that anything other than being gone for the amount of time I told you and coming back with nothing more than the exact same information we've had before would happen.”

She pauses for a moment.

“Am I not?” Alone, she means. In the end, she'd sided with neither of them — in the beginning she'd sided with neither of them, despite their assumptions. The Black Widow was probably always meant to be alone, in the end.

He does understand her, though. It's small comfort.

Edited 2016-12-06 10:06 (UTC)

Steve doesn't try to stop her from standing, or help her pull the curtains closed. She can do it on her own if that's how she wants it, and it's not a petty thought. She knows her body and how it can be hurt, she knows the risks of trying to get around on her knee like it is, and in spite of all of this he'd be the last person to tell her she has to mind them.

There's a strip of light still running the length of the room from the window, crossing the panels of the wood floor. He's standing mostly to the side of it but steps into it to move closer to her, sitting down on the truck across from her. He doesn't give any thought to whether it can bear his weight; things like this were built to last a lifetime. His own fire's pretty well banked by her answer, as well as it ever is, just leaving behind something ashen in tribute to the last few days. He hasn't exactly been sleeping well, and apparently that's something that shows now if it's been long enough. The light stripes her knees, and he leans his forearms on his own.

"You could have asked me. Or Sam, or Clint. Hell, Thor." He knows it's not exactly what she's asking, but true to his word, even if it was only in his own mind, he holds her gaze for as long as she'll hold his. "I'll always be there if you need me, Nat."

It sounds too final, too accepting of the position they're in, and it's not what he means. He wants so much more from her than this, what she thinks of his own regard for her, that he almost laughs. Some of it's still there, a wryness to his next frustrated breath, and he links his fingers, presses his palms together so he's able to feel the callouses that have started to form on his right hand. "I'm grateful that you sent the decryption for the Raft. I would've liked it better if you'd been with me. If that's not where you wanna be back home because you think I'm going about it wrong, fine, I understand. But you're still my friend."

Her face moves from confusion to astonishment and back again as he speaks, because while it doesn't surprise her, it does. He'd do the same for anyone, and she knows that, but for her, for her— it's different. Because she doesn't need it, has never needed the approval of the people in her life (wanting it is an entirely different matter but the fact remains the same), she's only ever needed approval from herself. Ever since Bruce and Ultron, she's decided she's going to keep on the path that gives her that. Even if it means she walks it by herself. And here he is, telling her that even if she's walking alone, he's not far. That he will respect whatever distance they have between them, but whatever bridge she needs him to cross, he will. It's a little daunting.

She reaches forward and puts her hand over his clasped ones.

“You're a good man,” she says quietly, like the entire world is listening in on them but for this, only he gets to hear.

He shakes his head, less a denial of that than of how much it's really got to do with anything. It's the truth that he's always wanted to do what was right, and he's just been lucky that the things he wants for himself, the parts of him that are selfish, have more or less run parallel to that path. That's all it is; he'd do the same for anyone, but Natasha isn't just anyone, so his reasons go far beyond what's good or right. "Not really, no."

He only answers her in kind, so he hopes she takes it that way rather than the revelation it would be otherwise. He wants to unclasp his hands under hers, open them and let her palm settle against his. He knows it would feel as natural as breathing (if she let him), which is why he doesn't.

"But you're one of the only ones I've got who knows that."

She wants to kiss him.

She won't, of course — it'd be senseless and foolish and it'd probably hurt, not to even mention the fact that Steve has someone now, a piece of his life he thought he'd never get back. He's got stability and the potential for family and whatever feelings she's got growing inside of her can't compare to that. The moment she feels it is brief, a blip so fast it almost doesn't register, but not quite fast enough for her to ignore. She at least manages to trap it and tuck it away before it shows on her face and in the way she sits.

Natasha is grateful for his friendship and wouldn't ask for anything more. She squeezes his hands and gives him a small smile, reluctant to pull away even as she does so.

“Still,” she says wryly, straightening up and tucking her hands together on her lap.

“You are. And I'm not going to promise I won't want to go off on my own again,” Natasha continues, holding up a hand to stave off the protest that she's knows is coming. “But. I will give you time to talk me out of it and into taking someone with me.”

There's a small pause, and she lowers her hand, glancing away from him for a second.

“I've been broken worse than this. I will get broken worse than this. I have and will always survive.”

Steve looks down when she takes her hand back, lips pressed together. He doesn't intend to look at his own hands, where hers had been, but he does and it feels apropos. She's no longer touching him, yes, but it's more that it had seemed just as easy for her to pull away as to reach out. He wishes he knew how to read any of this. Her body language gives nothing away, and he's not about to go down the path of hoping that maybe not seeing what he wants to just means that she doesn't want him to see it.

At least his consternation segues easily into the protest that had indeed begun to form, his mouth opening and shoulders straightening before she continues, and he deflates a little comically, if he still doesn't seem too happy about it.

"Yeah," he replies, looking at her again after that. "But you don't have to do it on your own." He doesn't want to argue with her anymore, not really. But he's gonna at least try to get in the last word if that's her conclusion. The truth of it isn't the important thing; it's how they come by it, and whether they're sacrificing the right things along the way. He won't let himself be one of those things, whatever he is to her. He'll always fight her on it, if that's the how, though he can't help but wonder if she'd think that he's got no right to say it after everything, which is why he doesn't.

"You should go to the spring," he says instead. "You'll heal faster if you do." He pauses, for just a brief moment. "I've gotta head back that way, actually. I can take you to the spring first, then swing back around to you after I finish up. Shouldn't take me too long."

Edited 2016-12-14 10:13 (UTC)

Kate is proceeded by a cat. Miss Hoppity regards the Inn as her domain, and Natasha needs to be thoroughly inspected as one of Miss Hoppity's subjects who is acting strangely. The young cat leaps up onto Natasha's bed and primly hop-runs over to sniff Natasha's face.

Kate herself is carrying a tray, as smoothly as a waitress.

"Miss Natasha? I brought you some lunch."

There's no, if you are hungry. Injuries need sustenance to repair, and with the amount the woman has been sleeping, Kate knows there hasn't been many meals. And she is...

Well.

She might have a tendency to play big sister at everyone, despite her youth.

She tries to keep busy; kntting, mending, whatever she can get her hands on to do. Walking is still difficult, pain shooting up from her knee into her hip and down her shin into her ankle, and it's really only at the behest of her friends that she's staying in bed at all to rest it up; she's been injured worse than this, before, and made it through. Currently, she's pulling needle and thread through one of her tank tops, the seam coming apart due to wearing it day in and day out. She only just barely managed to see the cat, moving her work out of the way just in time for Miss Hoppity to land in her lap. Natasha leans down, lets the kitten inspect her face before responding to Kate (the lack of 'if you're hungry' isn't missed; Natasha isn't going to bother arguing about eating because Kate could likely give Steve a run for his money in stubborness).

"Thank you, Miss Kate," she says with a small smile, tucking the needle into the fabric and stretching to lay the bundle down on the floor.

"You didn't need to." It's the only protest she'll offer.

This isn't the first time he's been by, but the last couple days he felt like he was potentially making headway on pulling out a tricky bit of piping connected to a gas line in one of the destroyed houses and hadn't stayed very long.

Today, however, rather than the usual monologue that would accompany his visit, he comes in fairly quietly, no words at all, clearly holding something that's buttoned up inside his coat. Which isn't a foreboding look on Tony Stark at all. He sits in a chair he brought up a few days ago - it came with a lengthy dissertation on what sounded very scientific but was mostly just him complaining about the weather - mostly having been otherwise acting normally regarding body language and where he's looking around, assessing any potential changes in the room.

When he unbuttons his coat, there is what appears to be a small bundle of dark grey and stripey fur, makeshift bandage on one leg, sitting in his lap. Several moments pass wherein Tony says nothing. Somehow.

Finally: "So, how was school today?", he asks, levelly all the way through with the slightest rise at the end to actually sort of make it a question.

Edited (wtf is wrong with me | yeah this one had to be the one.) 2016-12-01 05:52 (UTC)

There's a dark shape that darts under the bed when he enters, a pair of glowing eyes peering at out him, but otherwise unmoved. If Natasha notices the shadow, she doesn't commentate on it, instead a mixture of confusion and concern on her face. She rarely sees him quiet, because there's only two things that're happening when he is: something in science that he's concentrating on, or something horrible that he's concentrating on, and honestly, the last time he was uncharacteristically non hyperverbal everything went to shit. So there's precedence.

She opens her mouth to ask what the problem is when he opens up his coat, and Natasha clamps her mouth shut, opens it again to ask an entirely different question, shuts her mouth again when she thinks better of it, and opens her mouth a third time to ask "Is that a raccoon!?" at the same moment he asks her how school was.

It's only four decades of living in the public eye that give him the ability to not show exactly how amused he is by her initial reaction. He's downright proud, even. There was very little done on his part to elicit it in the first place - honestly he's still not really sure how all of this happened - but he's still beyond pleased to be in a position to benefit or capitalize from it. Life truly is grand sometimes, when you let it.

The little fluffball isn't all that pleased about being unveiled though, as it just lost a decent bit of warmth, and Tony looks down when it moves closer to him, putting his forearm around it to box it towards his torso and letting his other hand rest on it for a moment in a calming gesture, clearly something that he's done before. He's not petting it, because while it's not feral, it's still wild, and it only tolerates certain things, but it's small and injured and he can get away with more than he ever would have been able to otherwise. He's giving it a place to feel burrowed into, not trying to box it in.

Anyway. He's looked up at her long enough to see the majority of her clear inability to words before he initially speaks, and when he does, she finds words of her own. He decides to be nice and answer her question first.

"No, it's the latest in living mink furs. Yes, it's a raccoon."

There isn't much that can phase Natasha Romanoff, it's true. She's seen so much, not even including the last five years of her life, that she can take most things at face value without batting a physical eye. But Tony Stark showing up with a raccoon that seems to be tame — and that Tony seems to be fond of is more than she can really take. He should be proud. It's hard to do.

She makes a face at his answer, because the question was rhetorical, and she huffs out a sigh, her gaze not leaving the little bundle of fur for a long moment as she answers his question.

"School was boring. Like it is every day," she says with a huff, although she considers for a second before leaning down (with a wince), gently snapping her finger at the edge of her bed. "I got a box, though."

At the sound of her fingers, a small black shape, not that much bigger than Tony's raccoon pokes its head out, a fluffy cat with enough fur that it looks twice as large as it actually is.

"His name is Liho."

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