#dettached

"well, you know what they say about money." sharon tips her head at yelena, smiling a sardonic smile. there are a lot of idiomatic expressions related to money, and every single one of them rings true for madripoor. from her perch in hightown, sharon has seen the ultra rich continue to lie, cheat, and kill their way for more cash, no matter how blood-soaked it may be -- if it buoys up their bank account, then it should be good enough -- and consequently, she's seen the very poor continue to lie, cheat, and kill their way into a fraction of the pickings, using every underhanded means in the book in the name of survival. the same grubby game centered around the same filthy reward, to very different outcomes. it's really no wonder madripoor is up to its neck in trouble.

overall, it's not an easy job, becoming hightown's 'queen'. but sharon likes to think that's why she's been handed it to begin with. and speaking of trouble, it prickles at her more than she'd care to admit that the white widow is in their midst. yelena belova is unpredictable. even as an agent of SHIELD, sharon always got the distinct feeling that she would have walked away, if it weren't for nat. and now nat's gone, and she's got no idea what kind of firecracker she's dealing with; if the fuse is long enough to give her time to take cover, or if it might blow up in her hands with nary a warning. she doesn't like to dwell on the latter possibility.

"the trouble is why you're here, i assume?" sharon leans forward, grabs the bottle of whiskey and refills both their glasses. her eyebrow is arched in curiosity, but her expression is benign enough to pass as somewhat neutral. she's a hundred percent sure yelena is as familiar with this game as she is, and all the subtleties it requires. "there's a lot of debt owed around madripoor. some of it money, some of it blood. it all leads to the same conclusions, more or less." sharon shrugs, but there is nothing nonchalant about it. the polarized state of hightown and lowtown is the bane of the principality, and with the chaos of the blip, the disturbances in lowtown has grown even more disturbing as of late. "how about a deal, one spy to another?" the pitch of her voice has gone low, so only yelena could hear her. sharon barely moves her mouth, expression shuttered. "you tell me why you're here... and i'll see if i can help you. that is only if you need help, of course."

“  wha  -  what?!  ”  thick  accent  ,  voice  cracks  under  the  raise  in  tone  as  a  dark  brow  raises.  “    no    NO    there’s  no  way  in  bloody  hell  ‘m  leavin’  you  here  alone  ,  art!  ”  the  words  are  exclaimed  as  her  hand  moves  to  gun  belt  ,  “  it’s  not  just  your  arse  on  the  line  here  ,  it’s  me  &  my  sisters  too!  i’m  with  you  until  the  end  ,  got  it?!  now  are  you  hit?!  ”  question  is  asked  as  she  glances  over  the  cover  they  hid  behind  just  to  see  if  she  could  get  an  angle  but  unfortunately  a  bullet  skims  by  immediately  after  ,  “  shit!  ”  cursing  as  she  ducks  back  behind  cover  ,  eyes  focusing  back  on  him  with  wide eyes.  

quaint.          that's how hank anderson would describe this middle-of-nowhere-forgotten-by-man-and-god town,     with its little brother’s grimm houses and fairy-inked ambience,    a periphery of pinewood that belonged to the stuff of witchcraft,      caught between a dickensian childhood and an andersen cautionary tale.     (    quaint,   quiet.   )     he slams the glass down with a satisfied ah! which transforms into a wince once the alcohol hits his stomach:      a red balloon filled to the brim with sharp, fiery nails that prick and poke every time he shifts.      ulcers,    nothing quaint about fucking ulcers.     don’t blame him for drinking when his stomach was forever transformed into something swiss-cheese-like,     chronic battle craters,      you can’t dodge everything in his line of work after all,      so you let stress hit you like a meteorite,      let it press its greedy fingers into the memory-foam of your body,     dormeo-your-ass-out-of-every-situation to experience support and comfort later,       this comes with the job,       so of course he’d give in to the  spoil-yourself-you-deserve-it-for-fucks-sake  thoughts every once in a while,      which happens to be almost every night,      but it blurs the boundary of his work days,       rubs out the foul memories until they’re just blotches of graphite,       scrubs away the details into something he can almost ignore,      wash away with liquid fire.     

𝙱𝚄𝚃 𝚃𝙷𝙰𝚃'𝚂 𝚃𝙾𝙾 𝙵𝚄𝙲𝙺𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝙴𝙰𝚂𝚈,        𝙸𝚂𝙽'𝚃 𝙸𝚃?

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"I don’t know what happened to Marion’s possessions so I thought I would make something with what I could find.” A soft smile appeared on Ira’s face as he motioned to the small photo album sitting on his bed. He had assembled various pictures of Charlotte into something that passed as a family photo album. There were photos of Charlotte as a newborn (with a measuring tape, of course, for scientific reasons), being held by Marion, getting her first leg brace, losing her first tooth, playing the piano, and interacting with Leekie. There were also some photos of Marion at official events- though none of them showed her true personality. The last photo before the blank pages was his favorite. It showed him and Charlotte smiling at the kitchen table with a mess of art supplies between them.