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(no subject)

Who: Natasha Romanoff
Broadcast: Fleedwide
Action: Iskaulit to start with
When: 16 Nov

Video

[The broadcast is brief and obviously accidental. A young girl's face appears on screen, confused and tense, then almost at once her brows draw down and together in an intense frown. Her expression is dark and thoughtful as the feed shakes, then cuts out entirely.

For those paying attention, the corridors off the Islaulit can be identified behind her before the transmission ends.]

Action

[When she wakes up, a young Natasha finds herself in what appears to be a small dance studio. Unfamiliar, but not too shocking. The mirror, the barre, the wood flooring, are all things she's accustomed to. It isn't where she expects to be, but it is somewhere she would expect to wake up in a general sense, in a general way.

Waking up somewhere strange isn't completely shocking either.

It's not until she ventures out into the rest of the Iskaulit that she starts feeling out of her depth. She can't place where she is, even where she might be. There's no outside. The structures are nothing like she's scene before. The computers are completely alien to her. The people are worse. She avoids them, of course. At least at first. Sneaking through shadows and hidden corners, in ducts if she's lucky enough to find access. She observes what she can, trying to work together the situation as she can, applying what training she can. But how much she can do is limited.

Tiny spy is out of her depth.

Which is what forces her to come out of hiding. (Maybe that was the point?)

When she finally lets herself be approached, she's already determined to put on a lost, scared face. It's for the best. That way people will underestimate her. Trust her more. It's a good plan.

The expression might not be entirely fake, though, and she can't entirely hide her suspicious skittishness. The end effect isn't entirely unlike a stray cat begging for food.]

((OOC: Augment glitch? Come play with smol murder ballerina.))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Perhaps it really is true. Natasha can't believe it, though. She's sure there's someone watching, someone judging her performance here.

When she decides to attack, she tells herself it's because this has to be a test. Because they have to be seeing how she'll respond to the temptation of freedom—and because she doesn't think he believes that they have those choices either.

That's her reasoning, and it's a convenient cover for the fact there's frustration behind her when she lunges at him, throwing her small body at his head and trying to pull him off balance toward his bionic arm. If she's right about it being out of commission, it might give her an advantage.

She needs all the advantage she can get.]

[ Child, please. He's only taken by surprise for half a second, but she's already trying to use his weight and decommissioned arm against him. He'll let her pull him down, instead of trying to fight the fall, he goes with it, aiming to throw her off balance, too.

Even with one arm, grappling will be easy enough. She may find that he's a lot stronger than he looks, and he can definitely take more than a few punches from a teenage warrior. All he really has to do is get her pinned. ]

[Natasha may have made a tactical miscalculation. She was right about his arm at least, but she wasn't expecting him to be as tough as he is, and while she's good at this for a child, she doesn't have the experience or the efficiency yet that she'll show as an adult.

She does fight like an ally cat, doing all she can to avoid getting caught. It won't last but... she wasn't necessarily expecting to win anyway.]

[ Yeah, sorry. Supersoldiers aren't known for being delicate, a hard fact Natasha is learning in the moment. He doesn't expect anything less than her fighting for her life as if her passing the test depended on it. ]

« You're going to get hurt. Stop it. »

[ It takes longer than it normally would, the arm only serving as a cumbersome weight, but he does get her pinned. ]

[She makes him work for it, right up until the point where it's clear she's lost.

She stills then, but it's tense. She's not sure what's going to happen next.]

I'm not afraid of getting hurt.

[ He expects nothing less of a Black Widow- they're not ones to take being beaten lightly. Or at all, but really at her age, she's no real match. ]

« Maybe you should be. Don't be too quick to judge your advantage. »

Why? I wasn't wrong.

[She wasn't right either, obviously. But his arm is out of commission. The strategy was good.]

« And how did it work out for you? »

[ It wasn't a bad strategy, but she was clearly not expecting the strength that didn't match his build and the clear disability. ]

[Her chin comes up, defiant despite her position.]

I'm not dead, am I?

[And she doesn't expect him to actually hurt her. Maybe she misjudged his strength, but she doesn't think she misread that.]

« No. What about the next time? »

[ When it's not him and it's not a test. Bucky gets up, taking a few steps away, though he continues to pace. Keeps moving if she tries it again. When she tries again. ]

[She watches him, staying down when he walks away. She's not done. Especially not when he asks her that way. It feels like a lesson, and it's easy to let him be a teacher. He's much like her teachers.

Though he's been kinder than most of them.

Now she knows what she's dealing with.]

Next time, I'll know how strong you are. And how much you can take a hit. I'll account for it.

[ It's been a long time since he's been able to teach someone in this type of atmosphere. The ones along the peripherals of memory; shrouded faces, muted volumes. Things his mind wants to recall, but the fog is still intact. This feels like deja vu or muscle memory. ]

« Then account for it and make your move. The advantage of surprise is gone. »

[Natasha frowns as she climbs to her face. It's true she won't be able to surprise him again. She studies him, holding back.

It's clear that she's considering her next move as she sizes him up again.

She amends to herself, won't be able to surprise him the same way she did before. That doesn't mean she can't think of something. If she can do something he doesn't expect, if she has moves or weapons he didn't know about, that would still be an advantage.

This little teenage ballerina is clearly trying to think if there's still any way she could murder him.]

[ His stance shifts, shoulders squaring and steps light. It's something more familiar than the person he is now- older, more prepared. Certainly every bit as lethal as the legend says. He won't hurt her, of course, but an opponent won't give her the same courtesy. As far as he can tell, she's unarmed, though he wouldn't doubt that she had something.

Never put it past a black widow. His expression gives her nothing, and he waits for her to make the first move. Of course she will- when she's ready. ]

[She doesn't rush in this time, not until she's considered all of her angles. Once she has a plan, though, she doesn't waste time. Her expression stays blank and she tamps down the urge to telegraph her attack by taking a breath or tensing before she springs, but spring she does.

This time, instead of going for him directly, she charges in an arc around him, trying to use her size and agility to her advantage as she moves past, then uses the wall as a spring board to come at him from behind, once again coming from the left.

He might not be shocked when she tries to brace himself on his shoulder, producing a length of wire from somewhere and attempting to wrap it around his neck. An older version of her tried something similar before.

She always liked a garotte.]

[ She does take her time, but he'd practically told her as much. She looks for an opportunity and does well not alerting him to exactly how she's going to attack. His hand comes up to his eyes in just enough time to stop the garrote from wrapping around his neck. It bites into the fleshy part of his palm, but he's not about to complain about it since she's out for blood. He heals quick enough, anyway.

The extra weight at his back makes him teeter to the left, but he remains on his feet. His fingers wrap with some difficulty around the garrote, and he gives it a solid yank in an attempt to throw her off of him. ]

[She knows she won't get anywhere against him if she holds back. The split seconds it would take to pull her punches would lose the fight for her as soon as it started. Not t using every tool and weapon at her disposal would be as good as surrender. He knows what he's getting into.

He pulls at the garotte and she pulls back, putting all her strength into it. It puts her off balance, but it also keeps his one good hand out of play and buys her time. Her legs tighten around his neck to stabilize her as she looks furiously for another move.]

[ The blood pounding between his ears gives him focus. She's strong, and she has a slight advantage being higher than he is, but in the end, he's stronger. Not letting go of that wire, Bucky plants his feet and bends quickly at the waist in an attempt to throw her off his shoulders.

She catches on quickly to the situation, not letting go of her advantages. Good. If he'd had both arms available at the beginning of this, it would have been over much sooner. ]

[Given the situation, there's not much Natasha can do other than hold on as long as she can and, when he succeeds in throwing her off, roll away and recover as gracefully as possible.

Or gracefully might not be the right word. She is graceful, yes, but there's still some scramble to get back, preparing for a counter attack that she's more than half sure will follow.]

[ He doesn't blame her, he cuts an imposing figure even with the dismantled arm. Bucky doesn't close the gap or retaliate. Instead, he straightens and nods. That was good. With practice that he knows she'll get, she's going to be deadly. ]

« Keep that up and no one will stop you. »

[The praise is unexpected and for a moment, Natasha's pride at it shows. She doesn't think he'd compliment her lightly. Still, she says pointedly:]

You stopped me.

Edited (A million edits sob) 2017-01-06 03:37 (UTC)

« I'm a lot stronger than the average target. »

[ There are a hundred different ways she could have gone about attacking him, and despite their mismatch in strength, she adapted quickly to the change in information. ]

Even with only one arm.

[Which is part of why his approval means something to her, too.]

How would you have done it? If you were me.

« I've been training longer than you've been alive. »

[ Training, being brainwashed, reprogrammed.. Same thing, right? Their background is similar enough. ]

[More similar than not, all things considered. Probably.]

That's why your opinion is valuable.

[She wants to learn from the best.]