latrodectus | & open post

[ The night is close and cloying. Even in the middle of December, Miami is warm, and fast, and blinking. The city doesn't suit Natasha, whose skin never tans, but she still has some contacts here. Ex-Cuban, ex-operatives, old-school types. They had wired her a job through the old woman who sat on the curb outside Natasha's favorite coffee shop every Monday.

Natasha passed it on to Laura.

They had been training together for three weeks, sometimes with the other Avengers, but mostly alone. Not hand-to-hand, but infiltration, strategy, tactics. The confidence to know when and how to strike, because it takes confidence to make your own mission.

This is the situation: on the top of the Largo apartment complex, in the three-floor luxury penthouse complex, in a secret room with no windows, there is a woman being held against her will. She is the daughter of a local arms dealer, and she has been missing for two weeks. Her name is Nadja. The men who are guarding her are small-time, cheap talent. No match for her, or for Laura. But if they play their cards right, they should be able to get her out without them noticing. ]

I count three in the front room and two in the back. [ Natasha is sitting in an empty apartment, four floors down, staring at a laptop screen. ] What do you want to do?

Edited 2016-11-30 01:40 (UTC)

[ Covert ops and wetwork were something The Facility had drilled into her, but Laura had little finesse. She's a sharp blade, but one crudely made, a weapon made to thrust with no skill. Laura knows how to kill, but when it comes to making her own choices... She, still, has her doubts about whether this is something she can do. Her work with Natasha is a challenge, but it's a challenge Laura likes. Natasha had been correct: It's not so bad, being useful.

Laura is leaning against the wall, head tilted, ear pointed towards the floors above, listening. She hears the men Natasha speaks of, listens to their footsteps as they pace back and forth through the rooms, the soft murmur of their conversation. It's banal — they're making small talk about their lives, nothing Laura needs to pay attention to and so she ignores what they're saying in favor of where they are in the room. She glances up when Natasha speaks, doubt suddenly crossing her features, although it doesn't stay there long. This is her mission — this is her test. Natasha will defer to her in this, and it makes Laura nervous but also determined. She knows what will happen to that woman if they fail.

Laura does not want to fail.

It takes her a moment to answer as she listens to the footsteps again. ] They're pacing the room, patrolling... [ She trails off, thinking, and her gaze grows sharp at Natasha. ] They're expecting something. We need a distraction.

I could pull the fire alarm. It would set off the sprinklers, notify the fire department. [ It was the type of distraction that could be coincidental. Drunk prom kids on a dare, or something like that. But they would only have a limited window of time to finish the op before the more conventional authorities arrived.

Natasha tilts her head, a small gesture, controlled. ]

Or I could distract them personally. [ Riskier and more involved. ] It's your call.

Edited (fixing the icons) 2017-05-27 23:09 (UTC)

[ Laura considers, weighing the risks, the pros and the cons. A coincidental distraction would be good, but not controlled. There's a chance the kidnappers wouldn't budge — a slim one, but a chance. ]

I think it should be you. [ She says, after a moment. ] It's riskier, but more controlled. I know how you work. You will be fine.

[ Laura says it assuredly; it would take a lot more than mooks to kill the Black Widow. ]

[ The whole point of this exercise was to let Laura call the shots. Natasha nods once, but gives no outward sign of approval. ]

Alright.

[ She drums a hand on her leg, idle, but still somehow composed, then walks into the bathroom to grab her gun and maybe pull up her hair. There isn't time to put together much of a disguise— she'll have to improvise. While she's in the bathroom, she speaks into her wire. ]

I'll be ready in five minutes. Give me a signal when you're in position.

[ Natasha glances up at the mirror. She wonders, for a moment, if it's the right thing to do, to put all of this on Laura, so quickly. She doesn't wonder if Laura can handle it. Her expression does not change. ]

[ There is no response. Natasha will know Laura heard her; she's too busy slipping out the window, using her claws to scale the side of the building up towards the penthouse. There's no timer on her wrist, but she doesn't need that — her internal clock will tell her when her five minutes are up. What use would she be if she couldn't?

She waits, hanging from her claws underneath the balcony on the first floor of the penthouse suite. One of the men is standing there, smoking a cigarette. She counts the mental seconds, and with twenty to spare, the man retreats back into the penthouse, shouting something unimportant to his colleagues about soccer.

She taps on her wire. ] Now.

[ As promised, Natasha has improvised a distraction, stealing a cart with some food on it from down the hall. The food has already been picked over, and she doesn't have the right uniform, but through the door, it's hard to tell. ]

Room service.

[ It was a classic play. But they'll still have to answer the door. ]

[ She waits. She doesn't need the wire to know Natasha's in — her hearing is adept enough that she can hear the men breathing inside, sense the uptick of their heartbeats when Natasha knocks on the door.

One of them mentions not ordering room service — there's a brief verbal scuffle as they argue over who's lying about trying to get food, until one of them just goes to answer the door to tell the housemaid to scram, she has the wrong room.

It takes Laura only a few seconds to climb up and over the balcony, landing without a sound on it. She's in luck — they've left the patio door unlocked, likely because of their position on one of the topmost floors. Who was going to sneak in that way? She slips in, detected only too late; the two men on guard in the back of the room are hovered around the doorway to the front, trying to see what's going on.

Laura slides under the bed. ]

[ One of the men does eventually answer the door. It's the least of them, the one who can't afford to piss off the others. So it goes.

Natasha's mission is only to distract, so she pretends to be at once very understanding and very confused when he tells her to leave. ]

Are you sure? Maybe one of your friends? [ She says— it's obvious enough that the man isn't in the suite alone, no matter how closed to shut he holds the door. No, he says. We didn't order anything.

And then the man makes a mistake. Maybe it's just because he feels small, next to all the big players, or maybe he's just an idiot. But he threatens to call reception, to complain about the mix-up.

The rest of them are trying to be as quiet as possible. Under the radar, you know. They won't appreciate a complaint that will obviously get logged in the concierge record books anymore than they'd appreciate a phantom room service charge. ]

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

[ Natasha plays dumb. Another one of the men moves closer to the doorway, probably to chew the first guy out. ]

Edited 2016-11-28 07:42 (UTC)

& open post

Open Post

idek let me know if this doesn't work!!

let's go for a missing scene post-liu's x-23 run

tags this six months late, with starbucks

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its been 84 years

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idk some universe where ava is in the 616