capitalh | and we know the patterns

Entry tags:

and we know the patterns

Who: Natalie Rushman (or Natasha), Clint Barton and YOU
Where: Grand Park, near Alpha Force Tower
When: March 29, afternoon
What: ~~Natasha is scoping out a target.~~ Natalie is jogging on her day off. It is innocent and not at all suspicious.
Warnings: None at the moment
Notes: You can tag Clint instead of Natasha if you want. He is present and shooting at things.

There is a woman jogging in the park. She's fairly young, pale and red-haired, cute if you ignore the whole sweaty-and-slightly-out-of-breath thing. (She's faking the breathlessness, but she's pretty good at it when she needs to be.) She's done a dozen laps by now, and eventually she slows to a stop, bracing her hands against her knees, and looks out across the park, somewhat questioning her life choices.

There is also a man in a purple shirt, standing on the grass not far off the path and shooting arrows at a target he's set up most of the way across the park. Pay him no mind. The red-haired woman certainly isn't.

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Clint is shooting. He's being careful, because there are people around, but he's also a very damn good shot. If he wants to hit the target, he'll hit the target.

Except with the experimental arrows, since he's still figuring out how they fly. But they're not fatal, so that's why he's okay with practicing with them in a public setting.

Feel free to ask him what he's doing, or recognize him, or whatever.

While Bartholomew is making friends, Annabel is watching the fellow shooting things. It's weirdly calming, seeing the rhythm that seems to be involved and she simply contents herself with staring (not at all creepily or unblinking) at him.

A part of her entertains the idea of saying something, telling him she enjoys watching him or, at the very least, a hello, but she is not actually doing that well on the social front today, especially without Bartholomew to break the ice.

So yes, she's just going to stare awkwardly.

Never let it be said that Clint isn't aware of his surroundings. He isn't sometimes, but usually not when he's in a moderately good mood and doing something like shooting arrows in public.

So eventually, after he goes to retrieve his arrows yet again, he comes back and instead of re-settling, he turns and waves at Annabel.

"Hey there," he calls. "You an archery fan?"

She blinks, looking around her for a moment as if to make sure she's actually the one he's talking to. Because she couldn't be, could she?

Oh, it seems she is.

"Uhm--..Yes? No. I'm...Sorry, I was staring, wasn't i? Sorry, sorry. It's...Kind of soothing? I'm not exactly sure how to put it." SHe shifts about, awkward and uncertain.

Clint chuckles a little, not unkindly. He feels a little bad putting her on the spot like that.

"Nah, it's okay," he says, waving off her apologies. "It's pretty soothing for me too, great way to clear my head."

"Oh, okay." She smiles, reassured that she didn't muck up too badly. "That's...Good. I'm glad it's nice for you. I like watching that sort of thing. The repetition can be calming."

She's not sure what she's doing, has she mentioned that? Socialization does not come naturally to her and she feels like it's painfully obvious right now.

She's only paying peripheral attention to the man with the bow, as far as anyone can see... but when one arrow flies wide, and explodes only a few feet to her left in a bouquet of flowers which then float down to the grass slowly. Natalie stares at it for a moment, somewhat bemused, and then swings her attention back to the person who shot it.

"Hey!" she yells, stalking toward him. "You almost hit me!"

Maybe she shouldn't be approaching, but he did give her such a good excuse...

"Sorry!" Clint calls sheepishly, jogging over to her with his best, apologetic grin. "It shouldn't have gotten so far off course, I'm really sorry. Nothing hit you, right?"

"Barely," she admits grudgingly, folding her arms over her chest and glaring at him. "What exactly is the point of a flower arrow anyway?"

"I'm sorry," he says again, sincerely, retrieving his arrow with his most winning smile. "And, uh, I'm trying to impress a girl. Well, not impress, I know that's not exactly impressive, but I'm trying to y'know. Make her laugh."

Take pity on him?

Okay, that is kind of cute. In a really, really ridiculous way. Natalie can't help but soften a little at that, a smile creeping onto her lips.

"And does shooting things at girls usually work for you?"

"Weeeell..." Clint rubs the back of his neck, looking up as he thinks. "Sometimes? Maybe. I haven't really tried it before."

He picks up the arrow, now missing its payload, and tolls it between his fingers. "You're a woman, if you had an archer friend pop this out for you, would you be impressed?"

She eyes the arrow, and then at the flowers lying on the ground a few feet away.

"Well... I think I'd definitely laugh," she says diplomatically, wandering over to pick up the flowers and offer them to him as well. "Is this part of a plan to ask her out, or are you just shooting things in her general direction and hoping for the best?"

He takes the flowers back from her, wrinkling his nose in an approximation of annoyance. A bad one, since he's not particularly annoyed. "Well, laughter's better than nothing, I guess."

He wobbles his hand back and forth as an answer. "Not sure yet? Kind of... trying to gauge her interest, I guess." Oh, wait, manners. He has those, sort of! "Uh, I'm Clint, by the way," he adds, offering his hand with a lopsided grin.

"You have a very interesting way of going about it."

She considers his hand for a moment, oddly bemused, before she shakes it.

"Natalie. You work around here, or do you just like the park?"

"I was literally raised in a circus, I don't do anything normal."

Do normal people not shake hands anymore? Whatever, she seems nice enough, and she's humoring his ridiculousness and hasn't given any indication she wants to like call the cops on him for almost hitting her with his flower arrow.

"Nice to meet you. I, uh." Wow, she didn't recognize him? People didn't always, but once he introduced himself, between the fact that he rarely wore a mask and the archery, people usually put it together. "I live nearby. I've got a range I go to, but I've got a thing about trying to deal with wind and stuff..."

Natalie doesn't follow superhero stuff, okay? Natasha does, but that's irrelevant at the moment.

"I'm sorry, you were raised in a circus? Literally, or metaphorically?"

Clint would understand the difference. Thank you, Yelena, his first, and dearly departed love. ~~Although you never know, sometimes dead doesn't actually mean dead.~~

"Literally," Clint admits with a chuckle. "It's totally weird and cliche, but my brother and I ran away from the group home we were in and joined the circus when I was like eight, and that's what I did until I was 20."

"Oh my god. I didn't know that was even still possible." She shakes her head a little, giving him a half-amused open-mouthed stare of are you even real? "I guess that explains the flowers thing a little better, though..."

Only a circus boy would go straight for that kind of showmanship when he's just trying to ask a girl out. It's kind of cute.

"Why, you think I'm a showboat?" He rests his forearm lightly on the top of his bow, grinning. "'Cause let me tell you, Miss Natalie, I am a hundred percent absolutely a showboat."

Oh look, Natasha, there is a cat watching you. A robotic cat but a cat all the same.

He has a mouse, dead as a doornail, in his mouth and he drops it at her feet.

He's expecting praise now, please and thank you.

Natasha has always been a cat person. Even if this one is a robot... it's easy enough, as Natalie, to react to cats as friends, even if they're unfamiliar to her. She crouches down, hands on her knees, and smiles fondly.

"Hey, there, puss. Who do you belong to?" If it were a random cat, she would think it was a stray. Robot cat? Probably not.

he rubs up against her, nuzzling at her and then pointed looking at Annabel, who is string at Clint not too far away. His tail switches and he bats at the mouse, toying with the thing for a few moments and then peering at Natasha again.

She follows his gaze to the girl speaking with Clint, and smirks a little. "Ah. I see."

Her eyes flick down to the mouse at her feet, and she shakes her head a little.

"That's very sweet, but I'm not touching it. Thank you, though."

Almost curiously, she reaches out and runs her fingers over the cat's head, down its spine. She's not sure it can feel her, but cats deserve to be pet, robotic or not.

He can't actually feel it but he can know when to respond and does so accordingly. There's a meow again and an affectionate nip. He can do more if he so chose, using things strung together that Anabel has provided him but he only chooses to communicate with few people in that fashion.

Her though, he deems worthy of promptly flopping over on one side next to. She's interesting and he enjoys the attention.

Natasha doesn't pull her hand away at the nip - she knows an affectionate cat from an aggressive one, and whoever programmed this robot clearly knew enough about cats to get the behaviors right. She's not going to take the bait of that exposed belly though - she knows better than that.

"Your mistress just lets you wander like this, huh?"

He looks momentarily disappointed, then gets to his feet again, winding hsi way around her legs. She's a smart one, she can stay.

Looking over to Annabel, he tilts his head a little, and almost grins in that way that cats can do such a thing, looking rather smug and pleased with himself.

Almost as if to say "Of course sh does, it's not as if she is allowed to do anything else."

"Clever boy," she says with a laugh, straightening up again. "If you are a boy. It's probably not especially relevant to you."

He seems amused by this, as if gender is far below him. He cares not for such petty things and it's evident in his expression.

But then he's coming p to her, sitting at her feet and curling his tail around himself. It's a patient gesture and he looks pointedly at Annabel and her poor attempts at communication. Shaking his head a little, he seems more content to sit here with the woman who give shim attention.

This is a long-haired girl that Natasha should recognize, if she jogs past her, who is sitting in the grass doing what looks like are totally innocent (if odd) arm stretches and exercises.

In reality, arm covered thought it is, Aña is figuring out her limits and gauging her strength - she could do this at home, but even with Tommy she feels... weird, using her new cybernetic arm.

So she's in the park, pretending it's a totally normal arm.

Which, again, Natasha probably will recognize as 100% not true.

...It's up to the Russian assassin to make the first move, sorry.

Natasha slows to a stop near her, ostensibly just taking a breather, but after a moment she saunters over to the girl and smiles a little.

"Hey. Any chance you need an exercise partner? I always get bored trying to work out alone, but my boyfriend's busy today, and..." She shrugs. What are you going to do?

Aña wasn't planning to run, mostly because sweat and heat make long sleeves rather unviable as a life choice, but she does have a camisole underneath...

Still, she's startled by the sudden appearance of someone wanting to interact with her.

"Oh, um." She hesitates for a moment, uncertain. "Well, I mean, I'm not really dressed for it..."

She quirks an eyebrow, smirking a little. "You're stretching out for it..."

Come on, baby cyborg. Play with her a little, it'll be fun.

"I was just stretching," Aña points out. She pauses a moment, and then offers cautiously, "I've got a sports bra and cami on under my shirt, though..."

It's kind of cool. Jogging and running isn't the same as running rooftops in New York City, but it's better than nothing, right?

"Well there you go," she says cheerfully. "It's a nice day for it, too."

Her smile turns mischievous, and she tilts her head. "I'll buy you coffee or something if you beat me on the first lap. I've been out here for a while, so the odds are probably on your side."

She knows this girl is no good at resisting the offer of free coffee.

The odds would be, Aña thinks, in her favor even if the woman wasn't winded, but it's the offer of coffee that really gets her invested. She grins back, a little nervous under the mischief but plenty competitive.

"All right, you're on!" she declares, pushing herself to her feet. She hesitates for just a second when it comes to removing her glove and her overshirt, but it's not like she's gonna get her old arm back, and it's quickly getting too warm for her long sleeves, so she might as well rip off the bandaid. At least she'll have something to focus on that isn't the stares she knows she'll get. If this cute girl doesn't get freaked out and run off.

Glove in pocket, overshirt off as quickly as she dares, and she avoids initial eye contact by busying herself with tying the shirt around her waist. "What's our route, then?" she asks while still looking down.

Natasha doesn't bat an eye at the arm. She is quietly studying it, but without looking directly at it - it reminds her of the Soldier's, which would make her smile if she weren't politely ignoring it. She's curious what a girl this age did to earn it; the look of the skin where the metal joins her body, along with her awkwardness about it, suggests it might be new.

"One lap around the park, outside the trees. Collision with a pedestrian is an automatic disqualification, and we'll meet back by... that bench?"

She doesn't say anything about the arm. In fact, she pointedly doesn't look at it. Aña would think it was discomfort if her voice weren't totally unfazed when she speaks again. Aña can't help but relax a little, knowing that whoever this woman is, she's not judging her. (Maybe she should ask her name?)

"Yeah, okay." It's not short, that's for sure. And there are plenty of pedestrians out, so it might be easier to just go the "running on top of benches and newspaper stands" route. But pace herself at first, to get a feel for the other woman. If she's average and already tired, Aña doesn't want to beat her by too much.

She does a quick set of leg stretches, not that she's probably going to need it, and then bounces a bit on her feet. "You want a head start?"

"Don't you dare," she answers with a smirk. She rolls onto her toes, arms stretched over her head, all feline grace and an almost balletic pose, and then rocks back down again.

"I like your confidence, though. That's cute." Really, she's not sure - she has her suspicions about this girl, but she doesn't actually know what her abilities are or what she's capable of. She's interested to find out, though. "Ready? Set? Go."

She takes off the moment the word's out of her mouth, not quite at top speed. She hasn't decided if she's going to try to win or not, yet.

Aña laughs a little, but when the cute redhead says "go" and takes off, Aña's right on her tail. Her reaction time isn't really affected by her powers, at least not outside the realm of "normal", but she's worked with that.

Her reaction time is pretty damn good, when she's paying attention.

It's not always faster to parkour shit, especially when racing someone on foot, but it's very quickly that she sees a knot of people blocking the path ahead of them. There's a low wall and a newspaper dispenser on one side, a hot dog cart on the other. She hears the other woman yelling at the people, but Aña puts on a little bit of speed to pull even and jumps up onto the wall, taking two steps before planting her leading foot on the top of the newspaper dispenser and vaulting herself forward and past the people, hitting the ground running (not quite top speed) as if it ain't no thang.

Because it really isn't - this is easy as pie.

And it's something she desperately needed, if the gleeful expression on her face is any indication.

Unsurprisingly, a woman charging toward you with no intention of stopping is a pretty good incentive for people to get the hell out of the way, and they make a hole large enough for Natasha to slip through.

Her running partner... apparently does not see the point of bothering with that sort of thing. Natasha catches her vaulting over the newspaper machine out of the corner of her eye, and smiles to herself, swallowing down a chuckle. Whatever she is, this girl, she's not good at hiding it. It's almost cute.

Why just run when you can parkooooour?

But no, Aña's not trying to hide that she's used to running and vaulting up and over and under things that most people would consider things to go around. She's never seen the need - in New York especially, parkour was pretty in vogue with the teenagers.

And running, in broad daylight, in her civvies, not even caring for the first time in days about the glint of sunlight on metal as her arms pump? This is worth maybe making a little bit of a spectacle of herself.

She is gonna win this race.

Natasha tries. She really does. She's not much into giving anyone an easy victory unless she's playing them, but she has been out here for a while, and she suspects the girl is not entirely human. That's fine. Winning wasn't entirely the point, and she does want an excuse to buy the girl coffee. The Soldier seemed to like her, and that's rare enough in itself.

She comes in just a step or two behind the girl, putting on an ineffectual extra burst of speed at the end, and tags the bench with a slightly rueful smile. "Maybe I should have ruled out parkour too..."

Aña's breathing hard - the way you do after a good workout, not the way you do when you've run yourself ragged - and laughs breathlessly as she plops on the ground to stretch out a bit.

"Can't stop the parkour, I think it's woven into my DNA at this point." She does a split, rolling forward onto her stomach, propping her chin on her hands and watching Natasha's own stretch-out. "You probably would've won though, if you had. You're muy rápido."

"Thank you," she says with a little sideways smirk. "So are you. What are you, on track or something?" She's young enough to be in high school, Natasha thinks, though she's fairly certain that's not where that speed comes from.

She straightens up again, stretching out her back with a little sigh.

"I'd offer another lap or two, but after that, I think I actually am done. You want that coffee?"

"Something like that," Aña agrees, and doesn't elaborate further. Yeah, track or something. Like magic spider powers and doing secret society dirty work.

"I will totally forego making you weep from exhaustion if I get coffee out of it."

Natasha arches an eyebrow, but doesn't press. Whatever you say, Araña.

"I appreciate your mercy," she says with a laugh. "I think there's a Starbucks on the corner over there... I'm Natalie, by the way."

Arch that eyebrow all you want, Natasha, that's her story and she's sticking to it. For now.

"Aña," she says, grinning. "You think you can make it to the corner?"

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and we know the patterns

If you're tagging Clint, tag under this thread!

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I am not sorry to either of you. I feel lke I should be but nope

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