practice EP

[not_the_cavalry]

A woman walks through the door. She doesn't stop, and you'd have to be watching her to notice the brief hesitation in her stride.

Her shoulders relax and, while she glances at the message board, she continues to the Bar. She sits on a stool, glancing across the room.

She looks like any middle-aged businesswoman who just got off work, and is trying to figure out just how far she can push the definition of weekend. She casts a glance of mild impatience behind the bar, presumably for the absent bartender.

She's not a business woman, and it's not her day off. Her plane is halfway over the Pacific, and she's very lost.

Comments

[not_the_cavalry]

Melinda's eyebrows raise, just slightly -- more at seeing a coworker at all than what she's wearing or what she says. If Rome's buying, she's not arguing.

"I wouldn't say no to whiskey," she says, turning towards Rome as she sits, resting an arm on the Bar. It takes her a moment to think of how to ask the question she wants, because she's pretty sure Romanoff doesn't know Q-codes.

Attention, she taps with the edge of her forefinger, casual. Where here, over.

[redintheledger]

Not danger, Romanoff taps back. Drink first, over

"Bar, you heard the lady," Romanoff says, glancing down at the Bar. "And if I could get another coffee, thank you," she adds, warmly, as the drinks appear.

Very deliberately, she picks her coffee up.

Safe.

Or at least, not actively dangerous.

[not_the_cavalry]

Understood, end.

... Melinda stares at her magically-appearing whiskey for a long moment, then snorts. "It's no fun drinking alone," she tells Romanoff. "I'll have a coffee instead, if it isn't any trouble, Bar."

As the whiskey disappears for a coffee, she picks it up with a murmured thanks. "Haven't seen you in awhile."

[redintheledger]

There might be a small sigh as the glass vanishes. C'mon, May, you could have at least offered it to her.






Possibly performing tricks for R&D has annoyed her more than she's strictly speaking aware.

"I think the idea's been to keep me out of mischief," she says, and then her smile turns fond. "Have they been keeping you busy, too?"

[not_the_cavalry]

"You know me," Melinda says, taking a drink from her mug. "I make my own mischief."

[redintheledger]

"And so much opportunity to do so."

Not that Romanoff is judging - there are reasons she tried to bury herself in Linguistics before having to go to Russia that last time. (And from Russia to India, to Germany, back to the States with aliens...)

There's a lot one can do, when one's days are filled with paper and nights don't require night-vision.

"Shall we?" she says then, with a brief gesture to the series of booths to the side.

[not_the_cavalry]

Melinda doesn't say after you, but it's implied in her gracious nod. She slides off of her barstool after Romanoff starts that way, and when they reach the booths sits all the way in on hers, elbows on the table.

She watches Rome.

[redintheledger]

The booth she leads to them already has a novel on the table - Russian text, dinosaurs on the cover, the spine bent and creased with many, many years of reading.

When she sits, she relaxed back into the cushioned seat, and moves the book out of the way to put down her coffee. She looks...

Tired.

(But not as tired as she looked after the Battle of New York)

"Welcome to Milliways," she says, lightly. "We're out of our timestreams, so no time passes while we're here."

[not_the_cavalry]

Melinda's eyebrows raise slightly, and then she rolls her eyes as she realizes she could've kept the whiskey. "I'll keep that in mind.

"Alien tech?"

Her voice is as calm as before, but Romanoff knows her; her easy glance across the room is not as easy as it looks.

[redintheledger]

"Yes," she says, still calm. If she doesn't trust Milliways - and really, she doesn't - she's at least familiar with it not to be obviously wary.

Even by their standards of 'obvious'.

"Possibly with a dose of magic. But it's very, very advanced tech. The boss comes here, too."

[not_the_cavalry]

Melinda glances back to her. After a moment, she nods.

"Anyone else I should know about?"

[redintheledger]

"Hill, Barton, Coulson-used to. A very young scientist called Simmons, and an admin girl called Lewis. If there's anyone else, I don't know them."

It's just a statement - after all, she hardly knows everyone in SHIELD.

(But Coulson's absence hurts.)

[not_the_cavalry]

Coulson's name gets Natasha a sharp glance, and her expression -- twists, slightly, pained.

It'd be easy to take it as grief at Coulson's loss, instead of pain at not being able to pass on that he's still alive.

"I've met Simmons," she says, after a moment. "Smart kid, talks a lot, English?"

Two members of her team, and not one has mentioned it. Interesting.

[redintheledger]

"Very English. Babbled about a Fitz a lot."

She does remember them from one of her appointments at R&D regarding her Widow Bites, and their reactions had been...Well, normal. But enough to put rough faces to names and accents.

[not_the_cavalry]

"Yeah," Melinda says, dry. "They're a pair."

"What're you going by?" She takes a sip of her coffee.

[redintheledger]

"Nadine Rommel. Linguist. Married to Clint Barton."

Is there a face for 'I love my best friend/husband/shaped-person, but he really needs to have his morning coffee because strange bars appear', because if so, she's wearing it.

"You?"

[not_the_cavalry]

She snorts, glance going slightly side-ways with the acknowledgement that her most often used alias is mostly a riff on the name she uses at work (and in her head). "Melanie March," she says. "Accountant. Ex-USAF, if it comes up."

[redintheledger]

She nods once in a silent 'noted'.

"The boss doesn't want any reports," she says then. "Or discussion outside Milliways."

Classified! In...very, very strange ways.