[ He'll send it on over. It's not the ritziest joint in town but it's not the worst dive bar he could find either. It can be impossible to have a drink in peace at those so he avoids them if he can. ]
you just in for a few more or did you want to try to keep up with me?
With all respect to the people of Wakanda: they've turned metallurgy into a technologically marvelous art form and have made the most appealing scenario in which Bucky Barnes could hide from the world. The problem is more that Bucky can't hide from the world for long. Oh, he knows why he should... the words in his brain, the bits and bobs of the Ten Rings and neo-fascists and old-school fascists and run-of-the-mill crazy people with an interest in history and remnants of HYDRA all spinning on the same blue ball as he is means that he's going to run into the wrong crowd eventually, even if he does his level best to vanish into obscurity.
But Bucky itches to be in the world. To be doing something to make it a better place, after he unwittingly made it a worse one for so long for all the worst people. He's had some time to sort through the shit in his brain, to figure out what was real and what wasn't, to sort out the few times he had lucidity and feeling and wasn't just a machine, to try and pin them on a timeline based on history, location, what he was up to. It did happen, the lucidity, mostly in the 1950s and 1960s or so, which is... distressing in a new millennium to have the realization that it's been roughly fifty years since you've had a thought that wasn't part of a preprogrammed set.
You know. On top of all the other trauma about the entire situation.
All this to say: he leaves Wakanda. He doesn't leave without saying goodbye (to the children), and he doesn't consider the sort of concern this might bring up amongst his super and over-powered peers. He is a man on a mission.
That mission is to make the world slightly better than it was before he started hiding.
It was rough, definitely, the travel from the heart of Africa to Eastern Europe but he'd practiced handling the worst of it in Wakanda's crowded cities. Got used to the press of other humans, of semi-disappearing in a sea of people when he's built to stand out or vanish completely. To act normal, more or less. He knows what people act like when they're afraid, and when they're not; when they're bracing for the world to end and when it's just another day.
It didn't really occur to him that anyone would bother coming to track him down, at least not until he'd gotten really into it.
"It" being the improvement project. Sure he could've gone after multinational corporations, or become the vengeful boogeyman in greasepaint again... but corporations are actually difficult to dismantle in a meaningful way if one is neither the government nor willing to assassinate an entire board of directors (no matter how much they might deserve it, in his opinion, okay?) and he's not trying to raise the wrong red flags here. He'd do more harm than good before other people got called in to handle it, and so. It. The improvement project. AKA routing a small valley from the chokehold the local mobsters have everything in.
In some ways, going to ground again is like coming home.
It's more familiar to her, more comfortable than being an Avenger ever was (is? was? is?) - she knows this part, knows the dance and how it works, and can replicate all the steps in order. Ditch anything non-essential (read: everything) that could be identifying, cut ties with existing networks of support and control (read: everyone), use a non-traceable method of travel to get out of the country (read: boat). She destroys her existing identities with everything else - bye, bye, Natalie Rushman; goodbye, Rebecca Roth. No telling what Ross knows or doesn't.
Eastern Europe is the logical place to go lurk. No extradition policies, limited surveillance due to poverty, she already knows and speaks most of the languages and her appearance won't stick out. Rick hooks her up with a flat in Kyiv that's seen better days but she knows better than to complain. For the first two months, she barely leaves it - she catches up on her reality tv, watches the news when she can stomach it, spends her nights on the internet scraping for any news of Rogers or the rest. They'll find her when they're ready.
She tacks up diagrams of the Raft (hacked from government servers) to her wall and spends hours staring at them, drawing in pencil different escape routes, marking cameras and other obstacles in highlighter until when she closes her eyes at night she can see it on the back of her eyelids. She wants to be ready, needs this uselessness to translate into value when Steve does come calling. Natasha considers her safehouse a prison of her own making, unwilling to be out and free when the rest aren't.
When Steve does call, it's not to talk about a breakout.
James has gone missing. Only - he doesn't call Bucky 'James'. No one calls him that anymore, no one but Natasha and even then only in her head. He's slipped the leash in Wakanda, disappeared, but there are weird signals coming from the outskirts of Bulgaria about a man with a metal arm roughing up the local gangs. Cap needs someone to get there before Ross does, and while it stings for a moment that he's called her for that...
Well, she is nearby, anyway.
It takes her two weeks to track him, another week to get herself there, and a final week to stakeout where he's staying. The flat he's found makes hers in Kyiv look like luxury, but it's difficult to break into all the same - on a busy public street, where a woman with striking red hair will be noted and obvious. He hasn't forgotten his skills, clearly, and in the end she has to wait until nearly two AM when the street is empty and he's out to shimmy in the bathroom window. She makes herself at home, picking through takeout bags and flipping through random books, trying to discern what he's doing and why he's doing it.
In the end, she settles down to wait, legs crossed, on his sofa. He vanishes like this sometimes; her goal had been getting into his safehouse, not figuring out what he's doing with the locals, so Natasha doesn't know where he goes. Probably to run his own surveillance, on whatever targets he's watching. Still, it'll be dawn soon and he has to come back sometime - and she can be patient, while she tries to squash the feeling that it's some kind of fucked up family reunion they have going on.
When he walks in, flipping on the light, she's still on the sofa, though she's found a book that captures her attention and a mug of tea. Barely glancing up, she waves a hand:
"You were out of vodka."
She'd tried to find his liquor stash first, of course.
He pauses in the doorway, when the light comes on. Shuts it behind him but doesn't move his eyes from her position on his couch, curled up with one of his books. It takes a while for him to decide that he's not hallucinating her being here, in his hideout... primarily due to the fact that he hasn't had a proper hallucination since before leaving Wakanda.
So. If his rather healed-up brain isn't suddenly and inexplicably on the fritz, then something else is going on, and she's really here.
"Well I picked some up." Shouldering the backpack he's wearing off and setting it on the floor, where several bottles clink together. "Is 'what are you doing here' a dumb and bullshit question?"
He doesn't seem surprised. He doesn't seem not surprised. Flipping another page of the book, she reads a few more lines (mostly for show), before snapping it shut and tossing it haphazardly on the coffee table. Bucky Barnes looks ... good. Good enough for a guy who ran away from protective custody and holed up in some Bulgarian backwater. His eyes are clear, expression open. He's lucid.
Some of the tension, imperceptible to most anyway, eases out of her shoulders. She's talking to Bucky Barnes. Not the Winter Soldier. She'd been ready for either, but honestly? This was the best case scenario.
"You didn't really think you could beat up the local mobsters and have no one notice? One of them has ties to the Kremlin, and has been making noise. It was either me or Ross," she replies, nonchalantly, nodding at the backpack. "You gonna serve us? I thought you army guys were all polite."
Doesn't answer the question of who sent her — but Steve feels like too weighted of a subject right now. Barnes had left Wakanda without a note, or even a text to Rogers. Had to be a reason, even if the reason was that he didn't feel he needed to give him a heads up.. and that's between the two of them, right?
"So. Get bored of hiding out with T'challa?" Not that she was exactly on speaking terms with him, either.
"Figured everyone else got better shit to get up to, these days," comes out of his mouth unbidden. Yikes. Too many feelings there, scout. Time to reel it in.
Her words have him blinking again and then he re-collects himself, picking the bag back up and turning towards the kitchenette in the two-room studio apartment... if a space divided by half a wall could constitute the definitional value of two rooms. From Natasha's position on the couch she can see the entire space, barring the small bathroom with the door shut.
Either way, Bucky? Only half focused on the details that surround him, now that there's someone in his space. Someone he knows and remembers, from the life between the first and the current. It's a little weird. He figures it would be, even if his brain hadn't had to be completely reconstructed from the hot mess it was before.
Glasses, he has a pair of those, and there are also pastries from a spot at the eastern end of the street that opens in these pre-dawn hours every day. He doesn't go in there daily, but he has made it something of a habit.
He tells himself that he needs to be less paranoid. That having one favorite place to visit wherein he says nothing to the proprietors and makes all his decisions known to them via pointing one gloved hand and shaking his head or nodding probably won't get anyone killed.
Except the Black Widow is on his couch. Reading a 1980s science fiction novel. Or, was, he supposes. So, you know. Maybe paranoia is not that terrible. Or at least, not that without use.
He pours the glasses about 80% full, introduces a splash of orange juice to each, puts them on a plate. Puts the box of pastries under the plate. Carries the entire thing from kitchen to couch, setting it down on the trunk with a scarf draped over it that's currently passing for a coffee table. Sits down, picks up one of the glasses and holds it out to her.
Once she takes it, picks up his own and lifts it in toast. "Za nashe obshcheye zdorov'ye, nashe obshcheye proshloye, nashe obshcheye budushcheye." Drinks it all and doesn't wince, but doesn't sit the glass back down either. "What do you want me to call you, now?"
There are flowers, and his mouth is dry, and his skin feels hot in a way that would imply he'd been asleep in the sun for too long.
None of these things makes any sense. Because he's dead, truly deceased this time, and he knows it. Can still feel the hand of the Mad Titan at his throat. He was not headed for Valhalla, surely, and Valhalla doesn't appear/look/feel/smell/sound like this anyway.
This is not a noisy hall full of fallen heroes at a meal meant to last an eternity. This is a field full of vivid blooms in strange colors, some scattered buildings in the distance, what could be a city's spires on the horizon, and there is someone else standing not ten feet away from him with their back to him.
The Black Widow. That's... odd. What is she doing here?
He's moving toward her before he realizes he's made any decision about speaking to her, kicking up pollen the entire way there. Either she doesn't hear him or she's so distracted by also attempting to figure out just where they are and how the Hel they managed to get there because her back is to him the entire time as he crosses the distance between them. He should probably stop a reasonable distance, clear his throat, get her attention. Prepare for her to attack him in expectant self-defense.
Ask her, perhaps, just what it is she's wearing.
None of that is what happens.
Instead, he reaches out to touch her arm without saying a word and his brain just kind of goes sideways. He's not sure if he turns her around or if the Widow does that herself. She's got on the flimsiest white shift dress he's ever laid eyes upon, along with some odd circular golden floating headdress. The material of the shift dress clings to her body's curves in ways he can't stop noticing and makes it immediately apparent she has nothing on underneath it. Loki's mouth waters.
He also has on some ridiculously thin set of clothes, in black, which is not terribly unusual, even though it's not what he died wearing. The fact that he has on nothing beneath the pants is also not unusual.
All these things he takes in within the span of a moment because in the next second, he's shoved her back toward the ground, following her down and landing on his knees. His fingers catch at the neckline of the dress to keep her from hitting the ground too hard and while it does work, the fabric rips across her chest and exposes her breasts, and he has bent over to take one in his mouth before he can even blink, tongue flicking against a nipple just before he bites down.
One hand shoves the shift up nearer her hips while the other reaches between her thighs, parts the lips of her cunt, before two fingers press into her. He is dimly aware that this? Should not be happening. Something is wrong. He is too aroused and too willing to give into that sensation without trying to figure out what is going on.
He watches her face as he moves his fingers apart inside of her and sucks a bruise into her breast and decides, firmly, that he does not care.
Natasha can still feel the rush of wind, the way her stomach had flipped on the way down as her feet tried to find purchase on solid ground that wasn’t there and her brain tried to make sense of the utter lack of anything to break her fall. She didn’t have to turn and see the ground to feel it rush up to meet her, a sudden blacking out of her vision and a flash of pain —
but no crack. No thump. And dimly, somewhere, she can smell flowers. The sensation is all wrong; soft grass under her back, the tickle of pollen at her nose. She shouldn’t even be able to feel grass, but it feels like her legs are bare, her arms exposed.
When she opens her eyes, nothing is familiar. Not in the strange, literally alien way that Vormir had felt - a different way. The entire landscape is wrong, from the fields to the buildings in the distance. Even worse, nothing hurts. She feels fine enough to pull herself to her feet, though her body seems to throb (a half-remembered injury?). She’s not frightened. She’s not .. anything, really. At least, not until someone (something?) touches her arm.
They grab her, or she whirls, but the result is the same. She’s staring for what feels like a long moment, pupils blown as she sucks in a quick breath of surprise (and pollen, so much pollen). Loki is dead, for real. Thor had said as much, so it’s impossible for him to be here and…
They go down in a flurry of movement, her reaching for him too late to catch herself but in just enough time to grab him by the lapels and yank him down on top of her. The throb happens again, something very much not an injury, and she’s halfway through another gasp when his lips close on a nipple followed by enough teeth that she snarls. Fingers of one hand curl through his hair, tugging just hard enough to get his attention, while her opposite hand yanks at his shirt until she can feel it rip.
The grass is, thankfully, soft under her back and she shifts her hips to let him push the hem of her dress higher, entire body nearly jumping when his fingers first trace the inside of her thighs. This shouldn’t be happening, it’s all too impossible, it’s nothing and —
He presses two fingers in (fuck, when had she gotten so wet?) and Natasha makes a noise deep in her throat, back arched to press her chest further into his face. It’s not elegant, the way that she sneaks the hand down the lines of his body to cup his length through his pants, fumbling to stroke him a few times in a way that she hasn’t done so clumsily in years. Somehow she doesn’t think he’ll care.
“You’re — Fuck,” she’s made the mistake of shifting her hips again, her words breathless. “I can’t …”
The threads of the sentence unravel, slip through her fingers.
She gets a hand in his hair and tugs, hard enough to grab his attention. Hard enough to make his cock jump a little; then she touches him through his pants and his cock strains to meet that contact. Should it even be possible, her causing him more than a fraction of discomfort, considering she's human? Vastly unimportant to the current plot of things as he sees it. Besides, part of him wants her to fight him on this, even if only half in jest, knowing— or at least believing, at the moment— that it will not make a damned bit of difference.
So he laughs at her aborted statement, around her nipple, dragging teeth and tongue across her chest before he bites the other. Spreads his fingers within her to see if he can encourage more noise from her. She's so wet he can feel it practically leaking from her as it begins to pool down towards the palm of his hand. Loki turns his wrist so he can drag the pad of his thumb across her swollen clit before pressing down on it. So he can feel her body respond.
"You can't?" He teases, but his own voice is rough with need, slightly breathless with it, even as he rolls his hips into her touch. This is not nearly enough, suddenly; he wraps his free hand around her wrist and shoves them both together past the waistband, trying to get her to actually touch his cock directly. "I think you can."
What he does next is probably the most Loki thing she could imagine — and it's a bit of a relief, frankly. He laughs, the vibrations of his laughter spreading across her skin, and she twitches at the sensation. She pulls his hair again, as though affronted that he would dare laugh at her at a time like this, noting the way that he jumps in her hand and presses his hips greedily into her palm.
His thumb is too rough, the sensation too much, and Natasha shudders as she tries to shift her hips to escape the press, only succeeding in pushing him a bit deeper. She smothers a moan in her throat, biting down on her lower lip rather than giving him the satisfaction of hearing it.
"Fuck you," she spits, but the venom isn't there; it's chased away by the breathlessness, the way she seizes his length eagerly once his pants aren't in the way and strokes him firmly — not rough enough to hurt, but not with any real finesse. It's clear she knows her way around a male body; she might be rough on the shaft, but gentle as she swipes her thumb over the sensitive head, collecting pre-cum and spreading it down his cock to ease the friction of her palm.
Every bit of wriggling her hips drives him deeper — he's got her pinned underneath him, and it's only a fraction of a second longer before a treacherous noise slips out, something half a moan, half a growl.
She pulls his hair, says fuck you, and touches him in nearly the same moment; Norns, if that doesn't scratch every single itch he's practically ever had. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he's noted that neither of them is particularly sophisticated in their methods at the moment, despite every small indication that they could be.
Well. Next time, perhaps. There will be a next time, he feels relatively certain about that fact. Thrilled, in no small part.
"We'll get there," he says (partially to himself, partially in response to Natasha) as evenly as possible, which is not actually all that evenly, truth be told. Not when he shudders as her hand works his cock. Not when his mouth is more occupied with grinning at her and biting her breast than making himself able to be clearly heard. Regardless, he doubts that she didn't hear him.
He adds another finger, another shudder chasing across his shoulders as he does so. There's not going to be much more room for whatever currently passes for patience from him, he's aware; the driving desire to withdraw his hand and be properly fucking her is practically a chant in his blood at this point. But he wants her to lose herself, just for a moment, with his fingers inside of her before he allows himself to follow her. Wants to win, an apparently winning means wringing an orgasm from her first.
As his fingers thrust in and out of her, as his thumb rubs furious circles against her clit, his mouth moves up her from her breast to her throat. He fully expects her to pull his hair again, hopes she does actually, although that does little to deter him from trying to bite her neck.
The problem with going undercover with Natasha Romanoff is that she's maybe the most beautiful woman he's ever seen in his life. Which in reality shouldn't be a problem at all, in fact somehow, after all of this mess of bullshit she's even ended up as his. How? He's still not sure but she assures him that he is exactly what she wants and how can a man argue with that?
The issue though, is that on this specific mission Natasha's cover is that of some wealthy heiress, three times removed from some small monarchy in Eastern Europe and desperately trying to make political connections. His own cover? Her body guard, which means he can't actually spend nearly enough time looking at her in the little green dress that makes him ache with anticipation.
No, he has to stay watching the rest of the party, a healthy distance away. Far enough to listen to her flirt with other men, rich men, much better men then him. He never thought himself a jealous man, but somehow it seems like that is exactly what is rearing it's ugly head as the night goes on. Their mark they've been tracking is due to speak here in another hour, fuck it.
He checks his phone, even though there's nothing there before pocketing it and heading over to Natasha.
"Madame, I'm so sorry, but I have an urgent message from your sister if you'll please follow me..." He tells her as he heads to a set of backdoors to an empty hallway he'd clocked when they cased the place earlier.
She can tell from the way his jaw tightens when one of the gross old men (they’re always gross old men, or occasionally gross young men) skims a hand over the curve of her hip. She can tell from how he starts a bit closer from his position by the wall when another one brushes a red curl behind her ear. Bucky’s smart enough not to show it to the masses, but she’s trained for this — to see microexpressions, to guess at their cause. It’s an unexpected twist in their plan for tonight, but he’s a professional. They can deal.
(And if it’s a little cute? Well.)
She’s laughing lowly at an off-color joke whispered in her ear by the third cousin twice removed from the King of Moldova when Bucky’s hand lands on the small of her back. It’s a bit too intimate for a bodyguard, though perhaps not when he’s trying to get her attention. Holding up a hand, she makes her apologies to the group of men who’ve gathered around her — she’s memorized their faces, lined each one of them up in her mind with their relationship to their mark. It’s no hardship to cut away now; her skin is starting to crawl from all the ‘accidental’ touches.
Still, she turns on him once they’re alone, eyes furtively passing from his face to the rest of the hallway until she’s satisfied they won’t be overheard.
“So help me, Barnes, if you’ve blown my cover over some old guy getting a little too handsy…” Natasha keeps her expression neutral; anger would be memorable if someone did happen to see her face.
His eyes dart the hallway when she says his name. He knows Natasha is the best, that she would never say his name in eavesdropping distance from anyone else. It doesn't stop the immediate reaction though, and once he's sure it's clear he's got a hand on her wrist and is tugging her into an unused office. The kind that is boring, everything put away neat in the desks aligned in a row, but also boring enough that no one would need to come in during such a party.
"Oh it's not the men I have a problem with, Natalia," he murmurs once he closes the door behind her in the room.
His eyes take her in with a hungry gaze, like he could absolutely devour every inch of her and still be begging for more. Like no amount of Natasha would be enough to satiate the desire that night. He takes a step closer looking down at her pressing her closer to the door.
"It's you lookin' so fuckin' gorgeous that I have to think about fuckin' anything else in the world. We have an hour, and I'm going to have you."
Maybe this is why she likes him — the moment she thinks she has him sorted out, put into a neat little box, he says something or does something that throws all that to the wayside. Like when he drags her into an empty office, backing her up against the door once it’s closed with a look in his eyes that she recognizes all too well. Shivering, her hands land on his chest. She ought to pull him away. Ought to tell him to stay focused, keep his mind on the mission —
But he feels so good against her, body pressing her back against the wood, his heart beating fast against her palm. She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t been tracking him out of the corner of her eye — handsome in his black suit, enough that more than few spoiled wives had thrown him interested glances.
Her hands fist in his shirt, yanking him closer.
“You’re crazy,” she tells him, pulling him down so she can ghost a kiss across his lips. “And if we get caught and killed for this, I will kill you.”
Instead of telling him so, she works the top two buttons of his dress shirt, sliding one hand down his chest, his abs, to begin undoing the button of his pants. They won’t have time for much foreplay, not if they’re going to clean up and be back out there in time for their mark to arrive.
He falls gently into the pull on his shirt, pliable for her. It's easy to be with a woman as gorgeous as Natasha. He'll let her take as much as she wants in some ways, pour himself into her like water in a glass. He will always give himself to Natasha, it's just sometimes he also will take what he wants.
Tonight it's his night for that.
He wants to get his hands in her hair, but he knows better. Such things would be too obvious the second they walk out that door and he's got to be careful. So instead he let's those hands push up her dress and settle on her thighs lifting her once it was high enough to part her legs, pressing closer between them. There's still layers of fabric between them but he presses his hips into her like he's desperate to get any sort of friction he can started.
"You love it, love the excitement of it all..." His voice is low and heavy as he nips at her lips. Look, he should be concerned about the lipstick too, but he knows she's got a tube on her, and he can't resist those red lips. It's cocky, in a way he so rarely is. Like something about tonight broke him and is sending all his desires out the door.
"Can hear your heartbeat racing for me already," It's a tease that he whisper against the shell of her ear. The super soldier hearing was at least good for one thing.
( the address is more than enough for her — she can trace it back to any number of aliases, cross reference it with what she knows of him already (admittedly not much, it’s rude to dig too far on your casual whatever-they-are’s), file it away for later. for the moment, she’s too interested in what is waiting for her there —
she breaks in through the back door with a set of lock picks, disabling the security system with a well-placed mini charge of electricity mostly because she can.
when he comes in, she’s already in the shower. the noise bounces off the tile walls and out through the door she’s left open — not just for an invitation, but for security purposes. blood washes down the drain in rivulets, the bulk of it being washed out of her hair, clothes abandoned in a pile in a corner that she was careful not to let touch any bath mats or rugs in case the blood transfers. )
( he doesn't bother replying, figures the silence is enough of an answer for the two of them. of course it has hot water, he's not completely absurd.
for most of the people he deals with, the security system's enough to put them off. for the remainder, it's enough to warn him that someone's there, that someone's tampered with it. when he gets the alert to his phone — that it's inactive — he thinks that the timing's too convenient for it to be anyone other than natasha.
he's about fifteen minutes after her, long enough for the apartment to have warmed up from the escaping steam from the shower, from the heat of the pipes. he could have gotten changed, could have dressed in either a clean suit (the three-piece, the white everything) or something else entirely, but he hasn't. it's white enough, but with just enough dirt here and there, just enough red on the gloves and the sleeves to say what kind of night he's had.
the gloves are peeled off and dumped on a table that was probably originally a dining table and then repurposed as a desk and then a general dumping ground whilst the jacket and the waistcoat are draped over the back of a chair.
the shower and the open door make it just humid enough to be uncomfortable, and he rolls the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows, stopping in the open doorway to the bathroom. his gaze drifts over the discarded pile of clothes pushed neatly into a pile away from anything of his (cute but unnecessary — marc's had a lot of experience with getting blood out of near enough everything, a lot of experience trailing blood over near enough every room in every property he owns.)
a lingering pause, and then his lack of preciousness is emphasised by the way he — finally — opts to remove his boots (white, of course, leather chelsea boots — not entirely practical, but they look good). they're left just to one side of the open door. )
( she hears him come in — pauses long enough to listen to the noise of his boots on the floor and compare it to what she assumes his body weight is, and the unhurried pace of his gait. definitely marc. that established, she goes back to washing the suds out of her hair, having helped herself to the ancient looking shampoo and body wash to one side (his? someone else’s? any port in a storm…)
the footsteps linger around the space, then stop at what she assumes is the door. it’s a nice enough place for just a side property — modern open concept, an updated bathroom, a rainfall shower big enough for four and a glass divider to the rest of the room (steamed up a bit).
turning to watch him out of the corner of her eye through the steam, she drops her hands to a loufa she’s reclaimed from under the sink, pours body wash on it and lathers. )
I know a guy. ( kick ass dry cleaner in china town who will also make sure any trace of DNA doesn’t end up in any database anywhere. ) I never liked that dress anyway.
( the shoes were a real loss, though. )
You know I think that’s the most skin I’ve seen on you ever. ( she gestures with one soapy hand at his forearms, his neck, his uncovered face. ) Aren’t you hot in all that?
( he huffs a breath that's definitely a laugh, albeit quiet enough that it's impossible to hear over the sound of the running water. the quirk of his lips is answer enough in terms of a 'yes' — the suit is perpetually, uncomfortably hot and sticky and humid, but he's used to it.
he loosens the tie next, then the top few buttons of the shirt, and then he shrugs. it's — for him — a relatively relaxed action, lacking in the usual coiled tension he usually carries in his neck and in his shoulders. )
Most people don't need to know who's under the mask, ( he answers. it's not the truth, that'd be too simple. that marc sector is moon knight isn't exactly a secret — in a spectacularly non-violent breakdown (for him), he'd faked his death and run off to los angeles and had opted — he, not steven! — to film a tv show about fucking khonshu—. his identity is not only plastered on news websites from years past, but also on IMDB of all website—.
(it's a matter of personal pride, then.)
still, the heat from the shower is enough to make him feel stickier than normal, for his hair to curl at the edges and fall messily, untidily (mask hair is a problem—) into his eyes. )
That might be the only reason I turned up on time. ( or close enough, anyway. it's uttered mildly, something between a statement of fact and what could, from the right angle, almost be taken for a joke. (in a manner of speaking.) he leaves it to natasha to guess at how much truth there is to it, his own expression flickering as she says everything looks good on her.
there's no disagreement there, although his gaze lingers long enough to do more than imply that he's considering her statement. weighing it up before he looks down as she draws attention to the quote-unquote detail of the dress and he exhales. it's almost a laugh, and then natasha asks if he wants to dance.
it's not, strictly, that he'd like to, but—.
he holds a hand out towards in lieu of a 'yes'. then, in answer to her remark about the dress, with an eye cast over the rest of the guests— ) Too daring for who? Daphne and her sister have both been in the city for long enough that a bit of leg isn't going to shock them.
( natasha’s almost (almost) surprised that he says yes — but maybe tonight is a night for marc spector to continue to surprise her, and she’s learned to roll with the punches. he holds out a hand and she takes it, not wasting any time with hesitation; tugging gently, she leads him back towards the dance floor where attendees seem to be straddling the line between what natasha imagines would be regency appropriate type dancing and a bit more modern slow dancing.
settling herself in front of him, she doesn’t hesitate to rest one hand on his shoulder, the opposite still holding onto his as she raises it into more of a ‘waltz’ type position. it’s on the tip of her tongue to tease him (‘like what you see?’) but instead she just watches for a second.
if he doesn’t start them swaying, she will — with a neat little step that still gives the illusion that he’s leading. )
I heard they had family arrive. ( her smile is bland, neutral — ‘heard’ being, of course, a euphemism for found out. even in a place like this, old habits die hard; the bridgerton’s are (as far as she can tell) mostly harmless … but it doesn’t hurt to keep an eye on everything. ) Family that might be a little bit less used to ‘a bit of leg’ —
( a beat, bland smile deepening to a smirk. ) You don’t seem to mind it, though.
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redhourglass) wrote2022-10-14 08:28 pm
@moonknighted (tfln)
less irritating
if someone is trying to kill you, it’s generally socially acceptable to take them out
c:
you won't have to worry about that here. there were a few drunks like that roaming around earlier but they got kicked out
[ He might have helped them out the door. ]
Re: c:
fine, you win, i’m interested
address?
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you just in for a few more or did you want to try to keep up with me?
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( she’s tired of being treated like livestock at her current bar right now, anyway )
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With all respect to the people of Wakanda: they've turned metallurgy into a technologically marvelous art form and have made the most appealing scenario in which Bucky Barnes could hide from the world. The problem is more that Bucky can't hide from the world for long. Oh, he knows why he should... the words in his brain, the bits and bobs of the Ten Rings and neo-fascists and old-school fascists and run-of-the-mill crazy people with an interest in history and remnants of HYDRA all spinning on the same blue ball as he is means that he's going to run into the wrong crowd eventually, even if he does his level best to vanish into obscurity.
But Bucky itches to be in the world. To be doing something to make it a better place, after he unwittingly made it a worse one for so long for all the worst people. He's had some time to sort through the shit in his brain, to figure out what was real and what wasn't, to sort out the few times he had lucidity and feeling and wasn't just a machine, to try and pin them on a timeline based on history, location, what he was up to. It did happen, the lucidity, mostly in the 1950s and 1960s or so, which is... distressing in a new millennium to have the realization that it's been roughly fifty years since you've had a thought that wasn't part of a preprogrammed set.
You know. On top of all the other trauma about the entire situation.
All this to say: he leaves Wakanda. He doesn't leave without saying goodbye (to the children), and he doesn't consider the sort of concern this might bring up amongst his super and over-powered peers. He is a man on a mission.
That mission is to make the world slightly better than it was before he started hiding.
It was rough, definitely, the travel from the heart of Africa to Eastern Europe but he'd practiced handling the worst of it in Wakanda's crowded cities. Got used to the press of other humans, of semi-disappearing in a sea of people when he's built to stand out or vanish completely. To act normal, more or less. He knows what people act like when they're afraid, and when they're not; when they're bracing for the world to end and when it's just another day.
It didn't really occur to him that anyone would bother coming to track him down, at least not until he'd gotten really into it.
"It" being the improvement project. Sure he could've gone after multinational corporations, or become the vengeful boogeyman in greasepaint again... but corporations are actually difficult to dismantle in a meaningful way if one is neither the government nor willing to assassinate an entire board of directors (no matter how much they might deserve it, in his opinion, okay?) and he's not trying to raise the wrong red flags here. He'd do more harm than good before other people got called in to handle it, and so. It. The improvement project. AKA routing a small valley from the chokehold the local mobsters have everything in.
tl;dr excuse me
It's more familiar to her, more comfortable than being an Avenger ever was (is? was? is?) - she knows this part, knows the dance and how it works, and can replicate all the steps in order. Ditch anything non-essential (read: everything) that could be identifying, cut ties with existing networks of support and control (read: everyone), use a non-traceable method of travel to get out of the country (read: boat). She destroys her existing identities with everything else - bye, bye, Natalie Rushman; goodbye, Rebecca Roth. No telling what Ross knows or doesn't.
Eastern Europe is the logical place to go lurk. No extradition policies, limited surveillance due to poverty, she already knows and speaks most of the languages and her appearance won't stick out. Rick hooks her up with a flat in Kyiv that's seen better days but she knows better than to complain. For the first two months, she barely leaves it - she catches up on her reality tv, watches the news when she can stomach it, spends her nights on the internet scraping for any news of Rogers or the rest. They'll find her when they're ready.
She tacks up diagrams of the Raft (hacked from government servers) to her wall and spends hours staring at them, drawing in pencil different escape routes, marking cameras and other obstacles in highlighter until when she closes her eyes at night she can see it on the back of her eyelids. She wants to be ready, needs this uselessness to translate into value when Steve does come calling. Natasha considers her safehouse a prison of her own making, unwilling to be out and free when the rest aren't.
When Steve does call, it's not to talk about a breakout.
James has gone missing. Only - he doesn't call Bucky 'James'. No one calls him that anymore, no one but Natasha and even then only in her head. He's slipped the leash in Wakanda, disappeared, but there are weird signals coming from the outskirts of Bulgaria about a man with a metal arm roughing up the local gangs. Cap needs someone to get there before Ross does, and while it stings for a moment that he's called her for that...
Well, she is nearby, anyway.
It takes her two weeks to track him, another week to get herself there, and a final week to stakeout where he's staying. The flat he's found makes hers in Kyiv look like luxury, but it's difficult to break into all the same - on a busy public street, where a woman with striking red hair will be noted and obvious. He hasn't forgotten his skills, clearly, and in the end she has to wait until nearly two AM when the street is empty and he's out to shimmy in the bathroom window. She makes herself at home, picking through takeout bags and flipping through random books, trying to discern what he's doing and why he's doing it.
In the end, she settles down to wait, legs crossed, on his sofa. He vanishes like this sometimes; her goal had been getting into his safehouse, not figuring out what he's doing with the locals, so Natasha doesn't know where he goes. Probably to run his own surveillance, on whatever targets he's watching. Still, it'll be dawn soon and he has to come back sometime - and she can be patient, while she tries to squash the feeling that it's some kind of fucked up family reunion they have going on.
When he walks in, flipping on the light, she's still on the sofa, though she's found a book that captures her attention and a mug of tea. Barely glancing up, she waves a hand:
"You were out of vodka."
She'd tried to find his liquor stash first, of course.
I won't excuse you, no :P
So. If his rather healed-up brain isn't suddenly and inexplicably on the fritz, then something else is going on, and she's really here.
"Well I picked some up." Shouldering the backpack he's wearing off and setting it on the floor, where several bottles clink together. "Is 'what are you doing here' a dumb and bullshit question?"
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Some of the tension, imperceptible to most anyway, eases out of her shoulders. She's talking to Bucky Barnes. Not the Winter Soldier. She'd been ready for either, but honestly? This was the best case scenario.
"You didn't really think you could beat up the local mobsters and have no one notice? One of them has ties to the Kremlin, and has been making noise. It was either me or Ross," she replies, nonchalantly, nodding at the backpack. "You gonna serve us? I thought you army guys were all polite."
Doesn't answer the question of who sent her — but Steve feels like too weighted of a subject right now. Barnes had left Wakanda without a note, or even a text to Rogers. Had to be a reason, even if the reason was that he didn't feel he needed to give him a heads up.. and that's between the two of them, right?
"So. Get bored of hiding out with T'challa?" Not that she was exactly on speaking terms with him, either.
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Her words have him blinking again and then he re-collects himself, picking the bag back up and turning towards the kitchenette in the two-room studio apartment... if a space divided by half a wall could constitute the definitional value of two rooms. From Natasha's position on the couch she can see the entire space, barring the small bathroom with the door shut.
Either way, Bucky? Only half focused on the details that surround him, now that there's someone in his space. Someone he knows and remembers, from the life between the first and the current. It's a little weird. He figures it would be, even if his brain hadn't had to be completely reconstructed from the hot mess it was before.
Glasses, he has a pair of those, and there are also pastries from a spot at the eastern end of the street that opens in these pre-dawn hours every day. He doesn't go in there daily, but he has made it something of a habit.
He tells himself that he needs to be less paranoid. That having one favorite place to visit wherein he says nothing to the proprietors and makes all his decisions known to them via pointing one gloved hand and shaking his head or nodding probably won't get anyone killed.
Except the Black Widow is on his couch. Reading a 1980s science fiction novel. Or, was, he supposes. So, you know. Maybe paranoia is not that terrible. Or at least, not that without use.
He pours the glasses about 80% full, introduces a splash of orange juice to each, puts them on a plate. Puts the box of pastries under the plate. Carries the entire thing from kitchen to couch, setting it down on the trunk with a scarf draped over it that's currently passing for a coffee table. Sits down, picks up one of the glasses and holds it out to her.
Once she takes it, picks up his own and lifts it in toast. "Za nashe obshcheye zdorov'ye, nashe obshcheye proshloye, nashe obshcheye budushcheye." Drinks it all and doesn't wince, but doesn't sit the glass back down either. "What do you want me to call you, now?"
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here there be pollens of strange and terrible forms
None of these things makes any sense. Because he's dead, truly deceased this time, and he knows it. Can still feel the hand of the Mad Titan at his throat. He was not headed for Valhalla, surely, and Valhalla doesn't appear/look/feel/smell/sound like this anyway.
This is not a noisy hall full of fallen heroes at a meal meant to last an eternity. This is a field full of vivid blooms in strange colors, some scattered buildings in the distance, what could be a city's spires on the horizon, and there is someone else standing not ten feet away from him with their back to him.
The Black Widow. That's... odd. What is she doing here?
He's moving toward her before he realizes he's made any decision about speaking to her, kicking up pollen the entire way there. Either she doesn't hear him or she's so distracted by also attempting to figure out just where they are and how the Hel they managed to get there because her back is to him the entire time as he crosses the distance between them. He should probably stop a reasonable distance, clear his throat, get her attention. Prepare for her to attack him in expectant self-defense.
Ask her, perhaps, just what it is she's wearing.
None of that is what happens.
Instead, he reaches out to touch her arm without saying a word and his brain just kind of goes sideways. He's not sure if he turns her around or if the Widow does that herself. She's got on the flimsiest white shift dress he's ever laid eyes upon, along with some odd circular golden floating headdress. The material of the shift dress clings to her body's curves in ways he can't stop noticing and makes it immediately apparent she has nothing on underneath it. Loki's mouth waters.
He also has on some ridiculously thin set of clothes, in black, which is not terribly unusual, even though it's not what he died wearing. The fact that he has on nothing beneath the pants is also not unusual.
All these things he takes in within the span of a moment because in the next second, he's shoved her back toward the ground, following her down and landing on his knees. His fingers catch at the neckline of the dress to keep her from hitting the ground too hard and while it does work, the fabric rips across her chest and exposes her breasts, and he has bent over to take one in his mouth before he can even blink, tongue flicking against a nipple just before he bites down.
One hand shoves the shift up nearer her hips while the other reaches between her thighs, parts the lips of her cunt, before two fingers press into her. He is dimly aware that this? Should not be happening. Something is wrong. He is too aroused and too willing to give into that sensation without trying to figure out what is going on.
He watches her face as he moves his fingers apart inside of her and sucks a bruise into her breast and decides, firmly, that he does not care.
😌
Natasha can still feel the rush of wind, the way her stomach had flipped on the way down as her feet tried to find purchase on solid ground that wasn’t there and her brain tried to make sense of the utter lack of anything to break her fall. She didn’t have to turn and see the ground to feel it rush up to meet her, a sudden blacking out of her vision and a flash of pain —
but no crack. No thump. And dimly, somewhere, she can smell flowers. The sensation is all wrong; soft grass under her back, the tickle of pollen at her nose. She shouldn’t even be able to feel grass, but it feels like her legs are bare, her arms exposed.
When she opens her eyes, nothing is familiar. Not in the strange, literally alien way that Vormir had felt - a different way. The entire landscape is wrong, from the fields to the buildings in the distance. Even worse, nothing hurts. She feels fine enough to pull herself to her feet, though her body seems to throb (a half-remembered injury?). She’s not frightened. She’s not .. anything, really. At least, not until someone (something?) touches her arm.
They grab her, or she whirls, but the result is the same. She’s staring for what feels like a long moment, pupils blown as she sucks in a quick breath of surprise (and pollen, so much pollen). Loki is dead, for real. Thor had said as much, so it’s impossible for him to be here and…
They go down in a flurry of movement, her reaching for him too late to catch herself but in just enough time to grab him by the lapels and yank him down on top of her. The throb happens again, something very much not an injury, and she’s halfway through another gasp when his lips close on a nipple followed by enough teeth that she snarls. Fingers of one hand curl through his hair, tugging just hard enough to get his attention, while her opposite hand yanks at his shirt until she can feel it rip.
The grass is, thankfully, soft under her back and she shifts her hips to let him push the hem of her dress higher, entire body nearly jumping when his fingers first trace the inside of her thighs. This shouldn’t be happening, it’s all too impossible, it’s nothing and —
He presses two fingers in (fuck, when had she gotten so wet?) and Natasha makes a noise deep in her throat, back arched to press her chest further into his face. It’s not elegant, the way that she sneaks the hand down the lines of his body to cup his length through his pants, fumbling to stroke him a few times in a way that she hasn’t done so clumsily in years. Somehow she doesn’t think he’ll care.
“You’re — Fuck,” she’s made the mistake of shifting her hips again, her words breathless. “I can’t …”
The threads of the sentence unravel, slip through her fingers.
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So he laughs at her aborted statement, around her nipple, dragging teeth and tongue across her chest before he bites the other. Spreads his fingers within her to see if he can encourage more noise from her. She's so wet he can feel it practically leaking from her as it begins to pool down towards the palm of his hand. Loki turns his wrist so he can drag the pad of his thumb across her swollen clit before pressing down on it. So he can feel her body respond.
"You can't?" He teases, but his own voice is rough with need, slightly breathless with it, even as he rolls his hips into her touch. This is not nearly enough, suddenly; he wraps his free hand around her wrist and shoves them both together past the waistband, trying to get her to actually touch his cock directly. "I think you can."
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His thumb is too rough, the sensation too much, and Natasha shudders as she tries to shift her hips to escape the press, only succeeding in pushing him a bit deeper. She smothers a moan in her throat, biting down on her lower lip rather than giving him the satisfaction of hearing it.
"Fuck you," she spits, but the venom isn't there; it's chased away by the breathlessness, the way she seizes his length eagerly once his pants aren't in the way and strokes him firmly — not rough enough to hurt, but not with any real finesse. It's clear she knows her way around a male body; she might be rough on the shaft, but gentle as she swipes her thumb over the sensitive head, collecting pre-cum and spreading it down his cock to ease the friction of her palm.
Every bit of wriggling her hips drives him deeper — he's got her pinned underneath him, and it's only a fraction of a second longer before a treacherous noise slips out, something half a moan, half a growl.
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Well. Next time, perhaps. There will be a next time, he feels relatively certain about that fact. Thrilled, in no small part.
"We'll get there," he says (partially to himself, partially in response to Natasha) as evenly as possible, which is not actually all that evenly, truth be told. Not when he shudders as her hand works his cock. Not when his mouth is more occupied with grinning at her and biting her breast than making himself able to be clearly heard. Regardless, he doubts that she didn't hear him.
He adds another finger, another shudder chasing across his shoulders as he does so. There's not going to be much more room for whatever currently passes for patience from him, he's aware; the driving desire to withdraw his hand and be properly fucking her is practically a chant in his blood at this point. But he wants her to lose herself, just for a moment, with his fingers inside of her before he allows himself to follow her. Wants to win, an apparently winning means wringing an orgasm from her first.
As his fingers thrust in and out of her, as his thumb rubs furious circles against her clit, his mouth moves up her from her breast to her throat. He fully expects her to pull his hair again, hopes she does actually, although that does little to deter him from trying to bite her neck.
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The issue though, is that on this specific mission Natasha's cover is that of some wealthy heiress, three times removed from some small monarchy in Eastern Europe and desperately trying to make political connections. His own cover? Her body guard, which means he can't actually spend nearly enough time looking at her in the little green dress that makes him ache with anticipation.
No, he has to stay watching the rest of the party, a healthy distance away. Far enough to listen to her flirt with other men, rich men, much better men then him. He never thought himself a jealous man, but somehow it seems like that is exactly what is rearing it's ugly head as the night goes on. Their mark they've been tracking is due to speak here in another hour, fuck it.
He checks his phone, even though there's nothing there before pocketing it and heading over to Natasha.
"Madame, I'm so sorry, but I have an urgent message from your sister if you'll please follow me..." He tells her as he heads to a set of backdoors to an empty hallway he'd clocked when they cased the place earlier.
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She can tell from the way his jaw tightens when one of the gross old men (they’re always gross old men, or occasionally gross young men) skims a hand over the curve of her hip. She can tell from how he starts a bit closer from his position by the wall when another one brushes a red curl behind her ear. Bucky’s smart enough not to show it to the masses, but she’s trained for this — to see microexpressions, to guess at their cause. It’s an unexpected twist in their plan for tonight, but he’s a professional. They can deal.
(And if it’s a little cute? Well.)
She’s laughing lowly at an off-color joke whispered in her ear by the third cousin twice removed from the King of Moldova when Bucky’s hand lands on the small of her back. It’s a bit too intimate for a bodyguard, though perhaps not when he’s trying to get her attention. Holding up a hand, she makes her apologies to the group of men who’ve gathered around her — she’s memorized their faces, lined each one of them up in her mind with their relationship to their mark. It’s no hardship to cut away now; her skin is starting to crawl from all the ‘accidental’ touches.
Still, she turns on him once they’re alone, eyes furtively passing from his face to the rest of the hallway until she’s satisfied they won’t be overheard.
“So help me, Barnes, if you’ve blown my cover over some old guy getting a little too handsy…” Natasha keeps her expression neutral; anger would be memorable if someone did happen to see her face.
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"Oh it's not the men I have a problem with, Natalia," he murmurs once he closes the door behind her in the room.
His eyes take her in with a hungry gaze, like he could absolutely devour every inch of her and still be begging for more. Like no amount of Natasha would be enough to satiate the desire that night. He takes a step closer looking down at her pressing her closer to the door.
"It's you lookin' so fuckin' gorgeous that I have to think about fuckin' anything else in the world. We have an hour, and I'm going to have you."
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But he feels so good against her, body pressing her back against the wood, his heart beating fast against her palm. She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t been tracking him out of the corner of her eye — handsome in his black suit, enough that more than few spoiled wives had thrown him interested glances.
Her hands fist in his shirt, yanking him closer.
“You’re crazy,” she tells him, pulling him down so she can ghost a kiss across his lips. “And if we get caught and killed for this, I will kill you.”
Instead of telling him so, she works the top two buttons of his dress shirt, sliding one hand down his chest, his abs, to begin undoing the button of his pants. They won’t have time for much foreplay, not if they’re going to clean up and be back out there in time for their mark to arrive.
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Tonight it's his night for that.
He wants to get his hands in her hair, but he knows better. Such things would be too obvious the second they walk out that door and he's got to be careful. So instead he let's those hands push up her dress and settle on her thighs lifting her once it was high enough to part her legs, pressing closer between them. There's still layers of fabric between them but he presses his hips into her like he's desperate to get any sort of friction he can started.
"You love it, love the excitement of it all..." His voice is low and heavy as he nips at her lips. Look, he should be concerned about the lipstick too, but he knows she's got a tube on her, and he can't resist those red lips. It's cocky, in a way he so rarely is. Like something about tonight broke him and is sending all his desires out the door.
"Can hear your heartbeat racing for me already," It's a tease that he whisper against the shell of her ear. The super soldier hearing was at least good for one thing.
@ vestments
as long as it has hot water
( the address is more than enough for her — she can trace it back to any number of aliases, cross reference it with what she knows of him already (admittedly not much, it’s rude to dig too far on your casual whatever-they-are’s), file it away for later. for the moment, she’s too interested in what is waiting for her there —
she breaks in through the back door with a set of lock picks, disabling the security system with a well-placed mini charge of electricity mostly because she can.
when he comes in, she’s already in the shower. the noise bounces off the tile walls and out through the door she’s left open — not just for an invitation, but for security purposes. blood washes down the drain in rivulets, the bulk of it being washed out of her hair, clothes abandoned in a pile in a corner that she was careful not to let touch any bath mats or rugs in case the blood transfers. )
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for most of the people he deals with, the security system's enough to put them off. for the remainder, it's enough to warn him that someone's there, that someone's tampered with it. when he gets the alert to his phone — that it's inactive — he thinks that the timing's too convenient for it to be anyone other than natasha.
he's about fifteen minutes after her, long enough for the apartment to have warmed up from the escaping steam from the shower, from the heat of the pipes. he could have gotten changed, could have dressed in either a clean suit (the three-piece, the white everything) or something else entirely, but he hasn't. it's white enough, but with just enough dirt here and there, just enough red on the gloves and the sleeves to say what kind of night he's had.
the gloves are peeled off and dumped on a table that was probably originally a dining table and then repurposed as a desk and then a general dumping ground whilst the jacket and the waistcoat are draped over the back of a chair.
the shower and the open door make it just humid enough to be uncomfortable, and he rolls the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows, stopping in the open doorway to the bathroom. his gaze drifts over the discarded pile of clothes pushed neatly into a pile away from anything of his (cute but unnecessary — marc's had a lot of experience with getting blood out of near enough everything, a lot of experience trailing blood over near enough every room in every property he owns.)
a lingering pause, and then his lack of preciousness is emphasised by the way he — finally — opts to remove his boots (white, of course, leather chelsea boots — not entirely practical, but they look good). they're left just to one side of the open door. )
—I know a very good dry cleaner.
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the footsteps linger around the space, then stop at what she assumes is the door. it’s a nice enough place for just a side property — modern open concept, an updated bathroom, a rainfall shower big enough for four and a glass divider to the rest of the room (steamed up a bit).
turning to watch him out of the corner of her eye through the steam, she drops her hands to a loufa she’s reclaimed from under the sink, pours body wash on it and lathers. )
I know a guy. ( kick ass dry cleaner in china town who will also make sure any trace of DNA doesn’t end up in any database anywhere. ) I never liked that dress anyway.
( the shoes were a real loss, though. )
You know I think that’s the most skin I’ve seen on you ever. ( she gestures with one soapy hand at his forearms, his neck, his uncovered face. ) Aren’t you hot in all that?
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he loosens the tie next, then the top few buttons of the shirt, and then he shrugs. it's — for him — a relatively relaxed action, lacking in the usual coiled tension he usually carries in his neck and in his shoulders. )
Most people don't need to know who's under the mask, ( he answers. it's not the truth, that'd be too simple. that marc sector is moon knight isn't exactly a secret — in a spectacularly non-violent breakdown (for him), he'd faked his death and run off to los angeles and had opted — he, not steven! — to film a tv show about fucking khonshu—. his identity is not only plastered on news websites from years past, but also on IMDB of all website—.
(it's a matter of personal pride, then.)
still, the heat from the shower is enough to make him feel stickier than normal, for his hair to curl at the edges and fall messily, untidily (mask hair is a problem—) into his eyes. )
—Sweaty rather than hot.
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for vestments (continued from duplicity)
mk’s last reply
That might be the only reason I turned up on time. ( or close enough, anyway. it's uttered mildly, something between a statement of fact and what could, from the right angle, almost be taken for a joke. (in a manner of speaking.) he leaves it to natasha to guess at how much truth there is to it, his own expression flickering as she says everything looks good on her.
there's no disagreement there, although his gaze lingers long enough to do more than imply that he's considering her statement. weighing it up before he looks down as she draws attention to the quote-unquote detail of the dress and he exhales. it's almost a laugh, and then natasha asks if he wants to dance.
it's not, strictly, that he'd like to, but—.
he holds a hand out towards in lieu of a 'yes'. then, in answer to her remark about the dress, with an eye cast over the rest of the guests— ) Too daring for who? Daphne and her sister have both been in the city for long enough that a bit of leg isn't going to shock them.
( natasha’s almost (almost) surprised that he says yes — but maybe tonight is a night for marc spector to continue to surprise her, and she’s learned to roll with the punches. he holds out a hand and she takes it, not wasting any time with hesitation; tugging gently, she leads him back towards the dance floor where attendees seem to be straddling the line between what natasha imagines would be regency appropriate type dancing and a bit more modern slow dancing.
settling herself in front of him, she doesn’t hesitate to rest one hand on his shoulder, the opposite still holding onto his as she raises it into more of a ‘waltz’ type position. it’s on the tip of her tongue to tease him (‘like what you see?’) but instead she just watches for a second.
if he doesn’t start them swaying, she will — with a neat little step that still gives the illusion that he’s leading. )
I heard they had family arrive. ( her smile is bland, neutral — ‘heard’ being, of course, a euphemism for found out. even in a place like this, old habits die hard; the bridgerton’s are (as far as she can tell) mostly harmless … but it doesn’t hurt to keep an eye on everything. ) Family that might be a little bit less used to ‘a bit of leg’ —
( a beat, bland smile deepening to a smirk. ) You don’t seem to mind it, though.