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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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

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