tampered | just what in hell is going on?

Entry tags:

avengers - natasha romanoff

just what in hell is going on?

When; Backdated to June 4th
Rating; PG-13
Characters; Natasha Romanoff (

killerthighs), Steve Rogers (

punchedhitler), Thor (

godofabs), Clint Barton (

bettercallit), and Bruce Banner (

alwaysangered); tag yourselves in, please!
Summary; The Avengers assemble once more (sans Tony) so Bruce and Natasha can figure out where to go from here.
Log; Natasha retraced her steps back to the playground and asked one of the parents for directions to the City Center. Bruce was nowhere in sight around the fountain as she checked every nook and crannie. Where could he have gone? Not far and Natasha was sure he could handle himself. From what Natasha understood, anger was what set him off - anxiety not so much. Natasha stopped searching for him and glanced around the City Center. Steve had said there was a café that they could all meet up in..

Turning around, Natasha spotted it not too far from the fountain. Thankfully, it was the only one in sight so they wouldn't have a hard time finding it. She walked through the door and ordered a small cappuccino at the counter. Whatever money she'd arrived with was thankfully enough to pay for her drink. Natasha chose a spot somewhere near the back of the café, pushing two tables together and bringing more chairs around her. All of this was still so surreal. She was no longer in New York City, in Stark Tower. Instead, she was in a pocket dimension they called it - a place that brought her with people that already knew her, but she couldn't, for the life of her, remember whom they were.

Natasha sighed and sent a message to the others, telling them where she was.

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Steve is heading into the cafe, dressed like he stepped out of the forties, as usual. It's hard to get Steve Rogers in modern day clothing - it makes him uncomfortable, he feels exposed, he can't explain it. But he's here, taken the time out of his day to come find the rest of his team.

They could really use his help, he knows. He looks around and spots Natasha, and makes his way over; the expression on his face isn't quite a scowl, but it's definitely not a smile either. The more people come here the less it feels secure, safe, a place he can forget that he's in the modern world and Bucky and Peggy and Howard are-

Gone.

"Hi, Natasha."

Steve's arrival isn't lost on Natasha, but she doesn't look up at him. She takes a sip of her cappuccino as he walks up to her, finally looking up when he greets her. "Hey, Steve," she says with a soft smile. It was always strange to call him by his first name. When they'd met, Natasha was "on duty" one could say - they'd yet to form what would be the Avengers. So she'd called him Captain.

But for conversation's sake, she went with his first name instead. "Do you want to get yourself something to drink before the rest of them show up?"

Steve nods and goes to the counter - he comes back with a black coffee in his hand. Frankly he can't get enough of it, if only because it's real coffee, and there's a part of him that's still used to the black sludge the army served, and before that the ration. He takes a seat next to Natasha, running one hand through his blonde hair.

"What have you heard about this place so far?"

She watches Steve carefully, analyzing every one of his actions. She wasn't just going to believe so easily that they were all in this City. Natasha feared that something else, something malignant was behind all of this. However, Clint acted exactly like Clint. That gave her pause and she took her attention away from Steve as he made his way over to her.

"It's a pocket dimension known only as the City," she said calmly. "Get a job, get an apartment is what one girl told me. All the other information I've received are just people I don't even know telling me I've come back."

She paused. "At least they seem happy about it."

He's just himself - usual kind of stern Steve Rogers. The girl manning the register gave him extra coffee to try and coax a smile out of him and it worked; his smile was soft and a little wistful, and bashful all at once. But now with Natasha he just seems alert and attentive.

"You have an apartment - you were here a couple of months ago, but they say not remembering that kind of thing is common. It's across the hall from where I live."

"Oh well that's good," she said, polishing off her cappuccino. "I didn't want to have to familiar myself with my neighbors again." She looks to Steve, furrowing her brow. "I didn't get involved in anything too crazy, did I?"

Clint keeps an apartment, but he rarely goes to it, which is why he spots Natasha going into the café before the communications device vibrates in his pocket. He plays it safe, watches the area for a good few minutes, and then he's darting down from the rooftop he's perching on and straightening himself as if he's merely walked over.

He pushes the door open and searches from the back first, mouth curling up at the corner when his eyes land on her, and he heads over, helps himself to a chair where he leans back, legs sprawling out in front of him comfortably.

"Tasha."

The bell ringing above the door made Natasha raise her head. However, she's just missed him and sees no one. She furrows her brow as she looks down at the communication device. But whether she's surprised or not by Clint's sudden appearance is known only to her as she merely raised her head as he sat down at the table.

Natasha sat back in her chair, crossing her arms across her chest.

"Clint."

Sitting quietly, Clint merely took a minute to appreciate the fact that Natasha was there, the time in the city hadn't exactly been hard on him, but he had missed having her around, the connections to the world he knows, however disconnected from it he might sometimes feel. But after everything that happened, he would even be willing to admit to being pleased to see her.

"Do you know everything you need to know from interrogating the locals or do you need me to fill you in?"

Natasha held Clint's gaze as she traced the rim of her cup. It was always great to have him around. While they had their fair share of missions apart, they always opted to be sent together if there was a mission that required a team. Natasha even went on team missions without Clint, but it all came back to him. He was the one she was most comfortable with.

"I think I've got the gist of what the City is," she said. "I'm just curious about my life here before today."

"You left the day after I got here," he shrugged, as if it had been no big deal, but at the time he would have given anything to keep her around. "I didn't get the chance to speak to you before you went."

He pushed himself away from the back of the chair, placed both elbows on the edge of the tabletop, and leaned over a little. "I heard that you lived with Thor," he offered, uncertainty in his voice where he would usually be stating facts. "And you were close with a woman called Ariadne. She's adorably short. It's cute."

She arched her brow when Clint said that she lived with Thor. "I," she began, "I lived with Thor? That would explain why he seemed so suspicious when I came back." As nice as he was, she couldn't imagine living with him. Natasha couldn't imagine occupying the same room as another person whose name wasn't Clint.

"And yeah, I know about Ariadne," she said. "She talked to me on the network and showed me a picture of us and everything."

"She kept pictures? It must've been love," he teased. He liked Ariadne from their brief meetings, even if a few had been during a curse that saw them regress into high school students, but he found it intriguing to picture the two of them being close friends.

"I've acquired an apartment," he started, shifting in the seat. "It's spacious."

As she was taking a sip of her cappuccino, she shot Clint a glare at his little quip about Ariadne. "Well, I need to figure out what it is I exactly saw in her enough to leave her money and throwing knives," she said. "You know I don't trust even you with them."

She put her cup back down as he talked about his apartment. "Oh yeah?"

"You're forgetting the important part of this," he said, grabbing the flimsy menu from the table to look over. "She's too cute to be sporting deadly weapons. You weren't training up your own army of unsuspecting assassins, now, were you, Tasha? 'Cause she'd take me off-guard if I weren't keeping an eye on things." It was difficult to tell if he was being serious or not, voice monotone and uncaring, but there was a cheeky glint in his eye before it turned defensive. "And that incident with the knives so wasn't my fault."

"Yeah," he shrugged, as if was no big deal that he was practically offering her the chance to move in with him, no strings attached was optional. "Never really there, anyway, so you'd hardly notice me."

She shrugged. "What do you think I am?" she replied to his statement about unsuspecting assassins and cuteness.

Natasha then thought over his offer. Well, it wasn't like she was thinking over anything. She really did want to move in with him, but Tasha wasn't one to really express happiness or excitement.

"It'll break Steve and Thor's hearts, but I'm sure they can manage."

"You don't want me to answer that." He would, of course, but she probably wouldn't want to hear it. "Getting stuck here, no back-up, it calls for desperate measures."

Clint flopped back in the seat, restless and unable to keep still, and shrugged as if he didn't much care either way. "S'long as it's not me who's got to deal with guys twice my size in tears." The apartment where he lived wasn't far from where Bucky and Steve resided, it had been them who'd helped him settle, or as much as anyone could help him do anything. "If you've had a better offer, take it."

"Steve said he still has the keys to my old apartment, but maybe I'll want a change of scenery," she said. To put it simply. Yeah, that was a good reason.

They would all understand.

"You always want a change of scenery," he pointed out, smiling politely enough as a waitress came over, notepad in hand ready to take an order. He ordered two coffees and left it at that.

"If you need a hand moving your stuff over, I'll throw on a vest especially for the occasion."

A huff of laughter came from Natasha before the waitress came around. After Clint put in his order, she went on talking. "Well maybe this scenery will stick."

She looked down into her cup, but she'd already drank her cappuccino. That was Natasha for 'living with you wouldn't be unbearable.'

"It beats the Helicarrier. Whoever got left in charge of the décor seriously needs some creative ideas." But joking aside, the idea of being stuck in one place was going to be a challenge for both of them, and even when SHIELD facilities were home, there was always the likelihood of being shipped out far and wide on a mission. It was the lack of freedom and escape should it be needed that got to him the most.

"I'll sort it," he promised, taking the foamy cup when one was put down in front of each of them.

She snorts. "SHIELD isn't known for its creative types," Natasha said. She looks down at the cup of coffee that was placed in front of her. Clint did know that she loved her caffeine.

"So what do we do for money around here?" she asked as she took a sip of her coffee - she took it black, with no sweeteners or cream. "Because now there's no SHIELD."

"Except you," he smirked, because, really, she could be quite creative when she needed to be. "It must be so dull with us uncreative types hanging around blocking the flow of your juices."

Clint smiled inwardly at getting the order right and hearing no complaints for it. It was the subtle things he loved to do and felt pleased with himself about. "We get a job," he shrugged, but he hadn't really found a calling here yet. "Imagine that. Civilian lives." He mock shuddered at the thought, but in a way it was always something that he had craved and never thought he could have. Here there might be some chance of it.

"I guess it's not called SHIELD for nothing," Natasha quipped with a tilt of her head.

Civilian life? Natasha furrowed her brow. She didn't know what that was like. She didn't know how to live.. normally. Her voice was quiet next, as if admitting defeat.

"You'll have to help me with that." Natasha looked down into her coffee briefly before taking another sip.

"Why do I always get the impossible missions?" he teased, but it was nothing more than to cover up how he felt for her. He hadn't exactly had the best start in life, and normal wasn't something he really knew, but she was going to struggle with this far more between the two of them.

"The old team." He smiled at that, the thought of having her around not a bad one. "Well, I've got your back, but you knew that already."

Bruce had found a quiet apartment for himself. All the talk of curses had made him even more inclined to shy away from meeting other people. He was worried about the Hulk being unleashed under the curse.

He turned up late and settled into a seat with space on either side.

Natasha stopped mid-conversation with the other two when she noticed Bruce sitting down. She kept her voice level, calm, but she actually made the effort to smile softly in his direction.

"So glad you could join us, Bruce," she said. "Looks like I've gotten you involved in more than even I bargained for when you left India.

It was her way of saying sorry.

Bruce gave her a small smile in return. After all they had been through, he didn't want to scare her again. He never wanted to see that scared look on her face again especially if her was going to be the cause of it.

"Perhaps I should have persuaded you to stay in India with me, rather than both of us coming here." He paused. "Have you settled in?"

She chuckled softly. "There are some times where I need to be untraceable," Natasha replied. When he asked if she was settled in, she thought for a moment. "I have an apartment, but that's all I know. Clint's just told me that we need to get used to the civilian life, however."

"I thought I was untraceable," Bruce said with a rueful smile. As smart as he was he had even made a mistake here. He had been egotistical enough to think that he could outsmart everyone including SHIELD.

"Civilian life isn't something that I am opposed to. There are usually less world ending events then."

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just what in hell is going on?

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