driftfleet | (no subject)

Who: Natasha Romanoff + various
Broadcast: N/A
Action: Starstruck, Heron, Vanquish, Iskaulit & Siourew
When: Throughout February

Visits - Starstruck & Heron

[Don't let it be said that Natasha Romanoff isn't good to her word. She's said she would pay visits to a couple of ships, and in early February, she proves good to her word.

First on the agenda, she stops in on the Heron. It gets priority because it's not just a social call. She said she'd help Barnes out with his hair—it's obviously been a while since anyone gave it a trim, and he's agreed to trust her enough to help him out. Hopefully Barnes is in. She didn't call ahead to check.

Later, she'll show up on the Starstruck. She's actually been here a couple of times recently, eating Wanda's cookies and stopping by to see Peggy, but she's trying to make more of a habit out of it. Steve clearly wanted her to. And she hasn't seen him on those visits, so here she is again.

In Starstruck's kitchen.

Making herself some coffee.]

Exploring - Siourew

[Natasha takes the opportunity to get down on the planet. Or around it, as the case proves to be. Either way, she's taking advantage of the opportunity to get outside, to see a real sky, breathe fresh air and stretch her legs.

If anyone wants to join her for a hike, she wouldn't turn down the company.]

Hallucinations - Vanquish, Islaulit & Siourew

[As the month wears on, the tone of things changes for the worse. Natasha hadn't assumed she'd escaped the glitches affecting various members of the fleet, but she had seemed no worse for them so far. That changes as the month wears on.

It starts with flashes out of the corner of her eye. Little girls who watch her with eyes too old for their faces. They stand in ones and twos, tucked around corners and in shadows, glimpsed in the reflection in a window, there for only an instant, then gone. It doesn't end there, though. After the flashes, aural hallucinations. Voices come straight from her memory, clear and distinct, speaking in any of half a dozen different languages. They bark orders. Praise her dedication. Quiz her on training. A few words, a phrase, and then they're gone.

Then the visions escalate. The girls stay are no longer just girls. They're ghosts, sporting evidence of the injuries that killed them—they're students she killed along the way, bruised or bearing bullet wounds. Sometimes they're missing eyes, missing mouths. They float in windows.

They don't speak, because the dead don't. They just follow her. Isn't that fitting?

Natasha tries to go about her days normally. She visits the shooting range, or bars. She makes her meals in Vanquishes kitchen and she stops into bars on Iskaulit. She even goes back planetside hoping getting away from the fleet will ease the glitch, but there's no such luck. By the end of the month, she might walk into a room and for five full seconds, it's as though she's stepped into the past, back in Russia, back in the Red Room, watching girls be winnowed away until only the weapons remain, or she might turn a corner and find herself standing face to face with the distorted face of one of her marks from her early days as an assassin. She tries to hide it, but as time goes on, even she can't entirely hide the signs of stress.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[The touch, light and brief as it is, is welcome. Steve is on the short list of people Natasha is genuinely comfortable having close to her like this. Through training and effort, she doesn't show her discomfort with others but suspicion is part of her nature.

Not many people are allowed within her guard.]

About the same. Maybe a little better with Wanda, so that doesn't hurt anything. But otherwise...

Not much changes around here.

Is it a good thing or a bad thing?

[ he doesn't know, himself. sometimes, he likes to do this, ask others the very same questions that bother him. he is ambivalent about the fleet on the best of days. as of late, it's more evident than ever. ]

Maybe it's just a thing. Not good or bad.

[A difference between the two of them. Natasha's more prone to thinking in terms of how they are, not how they should be—whether they're right or wrong. Maybe that's a problem with her, but she'd like to think it keeps her vision clearer than trying to judge would.]

It has it's ups and downs, but mostly it just is.

You make the whole inter-galactic reality show concept sound boring.

[ and he's smiling, both broadly and brightly because it fits here so well, like a glove to a hand. there's little in any world that can affect this cool exterior of hers. ]

I mean, I gotta admit, the coffee isn't the best I've ever had but other than that it all seems to be a bit of a ride.

When is normal boring for us. [As though that could possibly be, as Avengers.]

Far be it from me to say I'm bored.

I'd say this is working out pretty well for you, though.

For me?

[ he isn't one for playing innocent and so the question is backed with a little shrug and a nod. ]

I won't argue that point, it is - pretty well.

[ and even more than that. ]

Glad you're not going to deny it. I'd have a thing or two to say about it if you did.

[She smiles over the rim of her mug briefly before lifting herself to sit on the counter.]

I'm glad you're happy.

I know better than to be om the receiving end of a thing or two from you.

[ a soft tease as he settles in front of her, back against the opposite counter. Nat is a force to be reckoned with and what's worse, she's almost always right. By now, Steve knows better than to question her. ]

What about you? anything exciting?

[ he'll be your wingman, Nat. ]

You're going to have to be more specific.

[Considering she already commented on Drift Fleet as a whole, Natasha has a pretty good idea what he means.

It's just not a conversation she thinks they need to have.]

I meant -

[ he says that with a rather pointed look, he knows what she's thinking and he avoids this line of conversation if only to prove her wrong.

( for now. ) ]

there's a brand new planet out there and it's pretty beautiful. Have you been out yet?

[ maybe it's metaphorical, maybe not. who knows. ]

Not yet. It's on the to do list, though. Seems nice...

[Was she really wrong though?]

Maybe not as much night life as I hoped for, but nice.

Not big on night-life, no.

[ those hardly fit him anyway and so, it's one of the aspects he pays little attention to when it comes to these planets but she is not wrong. ]

Unless you count hiking and camping trips. There's some great view around here.

It's on the to do list. Believe me, I need some air.

[She has plans, though. That's all right. Plans can change.]

I could use a hike.

The trails are pretty good around here and the nights aren't too cold.

[ he tries to decide if it'll win him a world of teasing or not and ends up simply telling her - ]

Peggy and I went the other day. They're pretty good climbs.

Did you? I've been climbing with her. I bet you had a good time.

[No teasing this time. Believe it or not, she actually is happy for him. Both him and Peggy.]

It was. It's good to see healthy planets. The first one I've been at was poisonous. We couldn't touch the water.

[ quite an experience, that was. ]

It's good to see there aren't many of them out there.

The real surprise is that more planets aren't poisonous. Seems like an awful big coincidence that so many planets are more or less hospitable.

But it's not really a coincidence, is it?

Never thought about it this way.

[ after the first poisonous planet, he was simply happy with bring grateful for clean water and fresh air and an abundance of life. ]

What's your take on this?

We know someone's behind all of this. No reason not to assume they're picking out our destinations too—to keep things exciting, add tension, comedy. Maybe romance.

You notice we seem to go from an urban world to a forested one more or less every time?

Well - I'd say this. I'd like nothing more than to have a little face-to-face with whoever runs this farce.

[ or more accurately, a little fist-to-face, if possible. ]

But I'm kinda glad they don't seem to find us being poisoned or suffocated exciting.

Believe me. I'm not complaining about that part either. I'm glad they're more interested in drama than bloodsports.