#twentyninetynines

@twentyninetynines​

“No – see that’s the thing,” Colleen sat up and looked at Miguel properly. Her hands together as she tried to figure out how to put it into words without sounding absolutely crazy. “I heard a rumor… that he’s bald. Thor is bald, his hair? Just a really well-done wig. Though considering he knows Tony and Zatanna is always around him – it could be a magical wig. An illusion! His hair isn’t nice at all! Nothing to be jealous of.” Danny’s family included Avengers and super spies and that should have been enough to make her pause before believing Sharon’s conspiracy, but there was little harm in this one, she figured.

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Steve had been the one for speeches. (And he didn’t care so much for them as much as people believed.) And Tony? He had been the one for rambling before getting to the point. Natasha? She had been the quiet one. The one with the dark eyes and serious expression where the other two had an abundance of life in their expressions. He told her to keep it concise, and Natasha leaned against the door, arms crossed, watching him carefully. “Corporate espionage.” She paused, letting the two words settle before she lifted her chin. “Concise enough for you?”

Natasha pushed herself from the wall and approached him. “Long version? Your name isn’t Mike. Just like my name isn’t Natalie. Or Natasha.” Natalia. But only a handful of people called her that anymore. Otherwise, it was Natasha. Or Tasha. “Relax,” she instructed. “If I wanted to hurt you, I would have already.” Her expression softened just a shade. “The longer version is I have been where you’re standing. I’m betting that he forgave you faster than you could process what was happening?” He wouldn’t have been in the building if it had been any other way. “When he found out who I was, he asked if anything was real about me.”

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The world was kinder than the one she remembered. But the Hound knew better than to have hope for it. The future was still there, written in stone as long as Tyberius Stone lived — as long as Miguel O'Hara still breathed — that meant the future was still a dark pit of destruction. A place where the only happiness a person could get came from a vial or a machine. (Miguel would know all about that too. So why was he so fiercely protecting the future like it mattered? Like any of them mattered?)

But something kicked in when she saw him. An impulse that lingered from years before. It twisted inside her, waking up after a long slumber, and she'd be lying if she didn't admit it felt like coming home. She followed him, quickly and quietly, each movement she made feeling more natural than the last.

He stepped into an elevator and she jumped in just as the doors were closing, giving him her best attempt at a smile that Rachel might have given him. She pressed a button on the side, figuring she should play the part for a moment, not that he'd ever been comfortable around her.

(And he shouldn't. It was the only smart thing about him — his constant wariness.)

The elevator moved and she let it go for a moment, standing in silence as she waited for it to get close enough to his destination that he might be comfortable, and then it stalled. (It was hard not to smile, hard not to laugh at how easy it was to break the gears on the elevator, to keep it stalled until she put the pieces back together up top.)

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The world was blurry in a way it hadn’t been in a long time. The people around her were blending together and the streetlights looked like blurred streams that ran across the sky as if they were rockets leaving a trail. Tabby didn’t know when she had started yelling, or what she had been yelling about. But the second she had attracted attention, her focus snapped to the man who had the audacity to speak to her. Tabby shifted, nearly losing her footing before looking the man in the eyes.

“It’s none of your goddamn business!” But then she took a step back and sighed as if that had freed something inside of her. A small flurry of rage and now she was fine. “Why the hell aren’t you yelling? Huh? Screaming is good for the complexion.” It occurred to her what was wrong, the guy, whoever the hell he was, was too sober to get it. (And who the hell went out in New York at night if not for a drink?) “Out of the kindness of my heart, I am going to help you,” she said, a new wave of confidence washing over her as she reached into her boot and pulled out a small single shot of booze. The kind that were supposed to be samples for you to buy the big bottle — but they were so easy to steal. “Your choice are… peppermint vodka or… uh, I don’t know what this is, the bottle was pretty.”