outstandingbalance | IC Contact Post

[The squeeze is appreciated, more than she knows. But he pulls away stiffly.]

Be careful. You'll hurt yourself if you grab the wrong spot.

[He takes her past the next cavern opening. There's a stench from that room, the smell of death decaying. She already knows what's there; he doesn't feel obligated to show it off.

Instead, he brings her to a more private space. The walls are lined with chalky notes. Articles from news publications over the past year are taped in some sequence, from "mysterious new arrivals awash near Vandare river" through "a new monster menace" and beyond.

There's a poster on the opposite end of the room, advertising "The Flying Graysons". It was a gift, wished into existence by a friend who never seemed to stick around long enough to realize how important he actually was.

Beneath the poster, a tally:
| - refused sacrifice. set on fire
|| - crowd control went badly. trampled?? maybe something else.
||| - vampire + wood]

I've been keeping a journal since we got here. It's useful when I think something's happened that's hitting our heads badly. I like to think it keeps me sharper than I'd be if there wasn't documentation.

[Without commenting on the decor, he pulls a small book from a place on a handmade shelf. It's a leatherbound journal, singed at the bottom with some old burn marks.]

Some of it's pretty personal, but. I was thinking that maybe I could jog your memory if you had a way to think back on what it was like when we first got here. We ended up stuck in some mines together. Came out to each other by accident.

Edited (formatting. >.<) 2016-01-29 03:59 (UTC)

Jog my memory. So you still think I'm the same Natasha you met before, just... wiped clean somehow?

[She sounds unconvinced by his theory, though if anything, it's because she finds that particular theory too attractive herself. Somehow it seems more likely than going home and being brought back again—the other option is that they could be from different realities—maybe just slightly different.

All the more reason not to get too invested in the theory.]

I don't want to disappoint you again, Dick.

I don't think so. I know it. I've dealt with alternate realities before. There's always something different about other dimensions. You're the same person. And you're holding on to the answer that'll unlock this whole case. I can feel it.

And even if it doesn't do anything for you... At least you won't have to wonder what you got into the last time around.

I really hope you're right about that. [At least in part. She also hopes that means that the people who seem to live aren't all dead, fizzled out of existence in some limbo dimension. But at the same time, it makes things a whole hell of a lot more complicated.]

I'd like to have the answer to this, but if I was close to anything, I don't know what it is. And I didn't find any way to leave myself a message.

I know that.

[His smile is warmer now, genuine and encouraging. He passes her the journal anyway.]

But if things are going to keep getting worse for us, we need to be more open. So even if you don't learn anything new from all this, at least we'll be at the point of full disclosure.

I'm still missing a lot of my people. Haven't heard from them since before the attacks. I don't know how far this is going to reach, but it'll probably get worse before it gets better.

[If it gets better at all.

She takes the journal, holding it gently, careful not to tear into the journal with her claws.]

I'm not going to turn it down. I can use all of the information I can get—and we could all use all the connections we can use. Trust... doesn't exactly come naturally for me, but this isn't a situationn we're going to get out of alone.

Then it's good that we've got each other.

[His hands linger against hers even after she accepts the journal.]

Natasha, I'm sure you're about to call me an idiot, but... Whatever this is. This thing with us. I want to start doing it more often.

No. [She says it a little uncertainly, her smile... not fake, but confused.

She's not entirely sure how to respond to this openness.

But it's not... unwelcome.]

We can talk more. Share information. It might give us some more perspective.

I don't mean about the work, Nat. I mean --

[Deep breath.]

I mean I want to wake up and have someone next to me. I want to be able to turn the work off for a little while and not let it get to me all the time. I want to feel normal. And I think you can...

[He trails off. His hands squeeze hers.]

I think we should start seizing the day before the next thing happens.

[That takes a little processing. She wasn't expecting that change of direction—not exactly. And not with a pile of corpses in the next room. Though maybe that's not inappropriate for her, huh.

She changes the subject at that, or seems to.]

I—I said I'd tell you about when I went to school, didn't I?

[Corpses are natural here. Too many things are natural.]

You did. And I'm still willing to listen, if you want to tell me about it now.

[Openings from Natasha are rare and precious, no matter when they come. He won't squander one.]

[What if she's sharing because she's kind of hoping to scare him off? Does that still count?]

I think you've figured out some of it. At least the gist.

[She with draws her hand gently, crossing her arms over her chest, head inclined slightly.]

The short version is that I was recruited by the KGB when I was a child. They had a program, they'd been running it for decades, training girls to be spies and assassins. Weapons, basically.

[So maybe they weren't as much on the same side as he thought.]

That's what Black Widows are, Dick. You understand what I'm saying?

[He listens patiently to her talk about organized governmental crime as if it means anything. As if she should've signed a conclusion for her before she was old enough to vote.]

I understand that it's your backstory. And sure, it explains how you learned to do what you do. But you seem to be under the impression that it's a bad thing.

[He squeezes her hands again, light eyes staring straight into her dark ones.]

You were recruited there. But I've got the feeling that's not where you stayed.

We can't control where we came from. But we've got the power to influence where we're going. That's what makes a hero.

Edited 2016-01-29 14:03 (UTC)

It is a bad thing. I graduated. I worked for them for years, and even when I stopped...

It's not like going straight changed my skill set. You don't kill people, and I've killed....

[She stalls on that, looking for an answer that's accurate that won't sound ludicrous. She's not even sure how you'd count some of them.]

—I've killed more people than a lot of the guys you fight.

[At least if Nygma was anything to judge by.]

And you think that's it? That you can't learn how to do things differently?

Let me tell you a little bit about my family. It's a little more complicated than "after my folks died, I got adopted by some dude who dresses like a bat and has about a thousand hangups about the grieving process." I was the first, but I wasn't the last. And some of us came from systems like yours.

Cassandra was raised to be a killer. It was all her father thought she needed to know. When she first came into the picture, she couldn't read or write. Barely spoke. But she had that -- it. She wanted to help people. She wanted to change. She just needed that help. She never went after innocents, the same way you don't. She was our Batgirl for years.

And -- more recently. [his voice tightens.] Damian. He's -- it's complicated. But he was raised in the League of Assassins. He's just a kid. He needs to do the kind of work we do. He's strong, and fast, and such a quick learner. He just needs to learn restraint. And. And he needs to know someone cares about him. That caring is even an option. And.

He's probably eleven by now.

You don't know that I never went after innocents. I went where I was told for a long time, and I did what I was told. I didn't—[She cuts off. He's so serious about this, and it would be very easy to make something up, tell him that she was just a girl in a bad situation, that she got out as soon as she could and never looked back.

But he deserves the truth.]

I was a lot older than eleven when I realized I didn't like what I was doing.

You don't get to be the Black Widow because you show mercy, Dick, or because you're honorable. Even now, I'm not exactly the nicest part of the team. I'm the person who kicks people off buildings or dangles them off the subway platform because Captain America isn't going to.

And there's no amount of playing the hero that's going to get the red off my hands.

People do things that aren't always great when they don't think they have a choice. However old you were when it happened, you chose to get out.

Maybe it didn't happen on its own. Maybe someone saw something in you and helped you out. And whatever you did then, whoever you were at home, you've been a hero here. You've done nothing but try to help people.

What counts is what you're doing now. That you're helping people now. That you were willing to sacrifice everything just a few days ago to make sure we could help people through a bad spot.

It's in you, Nat. Even if you can't recognize it yet.

You have more faith in me than I do.

[She says it softly, because she doesn't intend to draw out an argument about what a terrible person she is. She put it out there. If he still wants to trust her, or pursue... whatever it is he's looking for, then that's his choice.]

What would make you feel normal then?

[Not that she doesn't have a pretty good idea what he means. For all their playing, it just doesn't seem all that likely. Most of their bonding experiences have been decidedly not normal.]

That's fine. I'll hold on to all the faith until you're ready to believe in yourself.

[His hand raises to her face, gingerly cupping the edge of her jaw. Instead of responding to the other part, he leans in to kiss her again with as much tenderness as he can manage with consideration to how many fangs are there between them.]

Edited 2016-01-29 16:36 (UTC)

[That's its own kind of answer, really. And confirms what she thought, but wasn't willing to assume when she was a spider from the waist down. And when there really is a lot of fangs between the two of them.

She freezes at first, half afraid she'll accidentally envenomate him. But if he has a little patience, she'll start to soften, rising a little higher and moving in a little closer, long legs circling around him.

Kind of hard to figure out where to put her hands, though.]

[They'll make it work. They'll take the time and figure it all out. They just have to lean on one another.

He leans into her in kind, resting spikes against her underside, where he knows her to be the most armored. She can take him. She can handle him properly. She can...

The kiss tapers off slowly, but not because he's voluntarily abandoned it. A shudder runs through him, and for just a moment he sinks against her, going through her.]

... Nat?

[At first, she doesn't understand why the kiss ends. It was going well, once she started to relax. When she opens her eyes, she's in for a shock, shuddering and drawing back to look at him—because goblins don't do that, not as far as she knows. They don't fade or become insubstantial.]

What's going on?

I don't know. ... I..

[He looks down at a hand, which is substantially less solid than it was last time he'd seen it. His voice is softer when he speaks next, the murmur of someone whispering in another room.]

We'll figure it out. We just need to

[And then there's nothing at all. Empty space.]

[It would have been nice to say that she protested, or that she tried to grab him before he vanished entirely. That would have been dramatic and touching, maybe? Natasha's not without a sense of performance.

She didn't have a chance though, and even if she had, she wouldn't have taken it. Instead, she tenses, scanning the cavern for a threat or a clue, some kind of sign that Ryslig is playing host to some new threat.

And then he's gone.

And there are no breathing holes in the stone, or attacking mutants, or fog.

She's just alone.]

IC Contact Post

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, 10000SPIDERS. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 018.07.154.55 * 10000SPIDERS has joined 008.01.989.15 <10000SPIDERS>** This is a placeholder.