007 [Video] || My heart kept breaking. I threw it against the wall Can anyone feel me at all?

[theassassin]

I suppose it was just a matter of time before I got another reminder.

[The red head looks at from the phone to the thin box chain around her neck and the charm. A delicate fragile looking silver heart the size of a quarter with James' star in the center of it. The same one that he has on his shoulder back home, now miniaturized and placed in the center of a stupid metal heart on a chain around her neck. ]

This place... it never does quite let you get back on your feet before it knocks them back out from under you again. [This time? This time it's almost like a punch to the gut. James' star. Of course that's what she'd get.

Green eyes drift from the charm back to the device and she sighs. She's already wasted far too much time just staring. Letting the little heart spin around on the chain and watching as the image appears and vanishes from sight with every turn.]

A curse I'm assuming? Anything special I need to know?

Comments

[hulkbusted]

It's going around. Presumably you're going to want to take good care of it, but that's self-evident.

[theassassin]

Right. [She drops the charm into her shirt.] I think I can manage that. It couldn't be any more difficult to care for than a rabbit right?

[hulkbusted]

And unlike a rabbit, it's probably only for a day. At least you didn't try to make tea with it like Charles?

[theassassin]

Well, there's that. [She laughs softly. Shaking her head.] I knew what it was as soon as I saw it.

[hulkbusted]

So did I, but for different reasons. This place has a perverse sense of humor.

[theassassin]

Yes. It does. Just when I was starting to feel a little more...well adjusted.

[ Video ]

[bettercallit]

[ Clint didn't know, not for certain, but he did suspect, and the familiar symbol tells him all that he needs to know. James passed through the City once, on one of the weekends where people come and go as soon as it's over, spilling future secrets that line up more with her world than his own. He's a lot of things, but he's not slow.

It hurts, a little, and he would be lying if he said it didn't. But he knows he's got no right to that, so he doesn't say anything that leans towards it. He knew, really, she never lied to him, always said love was for children, and he wonders if something between her and the Natasha he left at home align. ]

Wanna get drunk? Got a good shoulder here going to waste that could see someone crying on it.

[ Video ]

[theassassin]

[She looks from the charm to the screen, and gives a small lift of her shoulders. A tiny gesture, not really an apology as much as a 'what can I say?'.

This isn't her trying to hurt him, she wouldn't. This is The City. At least, she's fairly confident that he knows that.]

Are you in your room? [She's in hers.] I'd rather not drink.

[ Video ]

[bettercallit]

[ After years of hiding himself away when he's vulnerable and throwing himself into danger, Clint doesn't show much of anything either way, but she's still Natasha, and it's not as if he didn't know, deep down, with any version of her.

The main thing is that they're all that they've got here, and he might be a lot of things, but he's definitely loyal when someone's gained his trust. ]

Up on the roof. [ He's huddled up in a corner, the view blocked from his sights, but the sky open above him; it's been safer so far. ] But I can come down.

[ Video ]

[theassassin]

[She nods.] That would have been my second guess.

[Natasha tucks the pendant and chain into her blouse and lets out a slow measured sigh.]

If you're safe and unaffected, I'd rather not put you at risk. [But she wants him to come down. She wants something comfortable, here and real, not this weight around her neck.

She's angry with herself for thinking that, but The City is one opponent she has yet to get a good picture of. It changes things too much for her to figure out how to anticipate it.]

[ Video ]

[bettercallit]

[ He lowers his head to hide the smile at that, but with all the snow finally gone, and the loss of time up high with a view of everything, Clint needed the time to sit and think without feeling trapped in.

Clint's still trying to work out how this curse, but so far, everything he longs to touch, reaches out for, it moves just beyond his reach and leaving him feeling cold and hollow, and isn't that something. He couldn't even pick up his bow to hold onto like a lifeline when he attempted it earlier. ]

Not sure it spreads like a disease, Tasha. [ The image jostles as he pushes himself up to his feet. ] Give me a minute.

[ With that, Clint switches off the feed and leaves the roof behind, going the proper route through the door and down the stairs. ]

[ Video ]

[theassassin]

[Of course he does, where he wants to be outside and not trapped in, she wants to be buried and deeply hidden away.]

Can never tell. [Look at what happened on the roof the last time. This is different though. If she can keep him from having to deal with this...

She nods and sets her phone on the bedside table, while she waits.]

[intheblanks]

Keep it somewhere safe.

[theassassin]

That's the plan for to day then. Keep the pendent free from harm.

[intheblanks]

That's the gist of it.

[theassassin]

I didn't kill the rabbit that was supposed to be my soul for an entire weekend, hopefully I can keep a pendant safe.

[intheblanks]

Your soul was a rabbit?

[theassassin]

Yes. A black one. Not exactly what I was expecting.

[Video]

[pinokosthewife]

Jamesh? Is that the name of your shweetie, Mish? [Pinoko looks curiously at the screen.]

[Video]

[theassassin]

[Natasha pauses, stilling the charm and tucking it away in her shirt.]

Back home, yes. He's not here.

[1/2; Video]

[pinokosthewife]

Pinoko knows that feeling! Her darling is back home too. Pinoko's the wife, you know! It'sha good thing time shtopsh for them, or my Doc will be having a lot of trouble... Pinoko's his nurshe too, you know! Handle an Op or ten on his own, he can do, but the man can't cook to chave his life!

He's so hopelesh without me. [She frowns, cupping her cheek while looking worriedly to the side.] Onche, he chet a pot of boiling water on fire!

[2/2; Video]

[pinokosthewife]

But, it shoundsh like you've bean dealing with thish a lot longer... how long have you been apart, Mish?

[Video]

[theassassin]

It's funny, but they often are lost without us.

[She pauses a moment and considers.]

Since I arrived here toward the end of October last year. [But she's been separated from him off and on for what feels like lifetimes since she's known him. It's funny the things you're heart grows used to.]

[Video]

[pinokosthewife]

A- a year?

[Her eyes go wide and she falls quiet.

She wasn't expecting to be away from him this long.]

[Video]

[theassassin]

[Wait... no.]

No, no.. only about four months.