aggravating | 8th Command; Voice

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*post: 008

8th Command; Voice

There's this old adage, Bargians. Secrets, secrets are no fun. Unless you are a part of one. I'd kind of like to add onto that for a minute. So, uh, bear with me.

There are a few things that yeah, they're supposed to be kept secret. No one and their aunt Martha care about your latest bowel movement or who you had a crush on in the third grade. Seriously, they don't. Unless you're loud, obnoxious, spray tan like hell every chance you have, and get into cat fights over who gets the last can of soda. Those are fine. As are the family secrets, things like divorces, fights. I'm not saying "Spill your guts, Bargites, 'cause it's just not faaaaaaair~!" Those aren't the types of secrets I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the secrets that have to do with someone else. If someone knows something about your future that, you know, might be good to know for your own peace of mind, your own well-being, then hey. What the hell are you keeping it from them for? Because I pretty much guarantee that when they find out - and they will - things will be even worse than you imagined.

And yeah, for the record? Lies of omission totally count.

[Private to Natasha]
Coulson's dead, huh? Or did Rogers leave that out of his debrief?

[Private to Arkady]
Gorgeous, I needed to be drunk yesterday.

[Private to Charles]
Give me a reason to actually keep giving a shit, Prof. Because apparently even if I work to come back to life now, I just die again later.

[Private to Steve]
So. Rogers.

Coulson's dead.

I flew a nuke into space.

Loki's a fucking supervillain.

Game over.

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For us? Yeah, no. We still have another few years of being tazed and lectured by a guy in a suit.

For Rogers? Not really the same story.

[Silence, for a little while. She knows better than to show too much emotion, because she's pretty sure that'll make him suspicious. But Natasha's good at the details - so there's just enough, and it's so easy to put express because damn is still unhappy about this news.]

Tony.

[At least she knows they have something in common: they suck at sit. reps.]

[She's good, he'll give her that. And he'd be buying it if, in a thread lost in time, Steve Rogers wasn't telling him something that's completely going against what Nat's showing him right now.

He's saying Natasha knew. From the second Steve got back Natasha had known.

That it was her idea.]

Fine. Loki stabbed him in the back. Left him to bleed out. Pepper only knew he'd died. The murdering idiot told me the rest.

[Ah, Steve. She told him to tell her if Tony wheedled it out of him, and really, it's her fault for not containing this better. (Coulson would've done a better job, but he was always the best control she'd ever had with SHIELD.) She lets her voice go hard, because even if she knew nothing else, that would be a good enough reason to put a bullet in Loki's brain. Actors use what they know; it isn't all that different for her.]

What did he tell you?

He went crazy, led an invasion, broke into my tower, sta-

[Yeah, okay, he gives up.

Natasha had been right, in the end. Tony's not cut out for secret ops or anything like that. Especially not when he's pissed.]

I just- ... You're still playing me. Unbelievable.

[Stabbed him in the back. She knows where that sentence is going. She also really, really hates being caught in a lie, and twice in one conversation? means it's time to let it go.

Which has its perks, really, because it means she can shove all the emotion away. She doesn't have to put on a show, so she doesn't have to feel it, not now at least. Definitely not in front of Stark.]

Because you're so accomplished at keeping secrets.

[This is why Tony can never be a spy. Natasha hates shows, Tony lives off of them. He exists to be the center of attention, to hog attention, steal the limelight. Natasha's shields go up as she draws back, Tony's exist only after he makes a spectacle of himself.]

I keep the ones that matter, Natasha. [Welp. That had come out pretty damn acidic.] Two people who know me better than everyone else in the world. And I fooled them for six months.

[There's a quick pause] Might want to take Rogers back to spy school. He contradicted your story pretty much as soon as you fell into it.

Edited 2012-07-18 13:37 (UTC)

[Well fuck you too, Steve. She keeps it all off her face, because that's what she does, she hides. He can hate her all he wants, all that matters to her is her plan is up in smoke and he's the only one left who made any progress with Loki.]

Spy school admission is closed. [Fuck you guys, she'll do this on her own from now on.] What did you learn? He took to buddying up with you much better than me.

[She's still treating it like a mission, benching her feelings and his. They don't matter now.]

Didn't want an invite anyway.

[He's... gritting his teeth right now. For just a moment. A tight clench of his jaw and a slight twitch of a muscle in his neck. Before he's doing his best to appear calm, uncaring. Pissed and annoyed and not... well. Anything more emotional than that.]

What did I learn? Uh, let's see. He doesn't get the appeal of porn mags, was going to join my douchebag garage band, joins in on the general hating of our lives being in the hands of some mysterious asshole...

And he can cook.

[Yeah.

It should be pretty damn obvious that what Tony found out wasn't dirty details on a murderous psychopath.

It's things people find out about would-be friends.]

[The whole thing thing was a wash, then, and it just gets more and more frustrating.

Some small part of her wishes Barton was here. He'd have her back; he'd at least spar with her now that it had gone to shit. Then again, there are a few important reasons she doesn't want him here, too.

But she has to deal with the issue at hand, and that issue is pretty much how long Stark will be angry; not how valid his anger is, or how she deserves that anger. She made the best call she could, that's all it came down to.]

I didn't expect him to go for you.

[Things are always a wash when they involve Tony. Even more-so when they also involve Mr. Easily frustrated and sweating peace, justice, and equal rights for all up there.

There's also the fact that Tony? He doesn't trust easy. And he doesn't take betrayal of that trust well. At all.

Not since he'd gotten his clockwork heart ripped out in his own goddamn living room.]

Lucky me. Guess I'm just that irresistible. [He's grinding his teeth, not even bothering hiding the way a muscle in his jaw is twitching, the narrowing of his eyes] So what was the full play?

Figure now that I'm not the worm at the end of your hook there's no harm in me knowing the whole thing. Unless you're doing that triple play thing, and next thing we know Rogers is coming out as live bait, too.

[No, he doesn't know anything about Bucky. He's just annoyingly, randomly on the money sometimes.

It gets him in so much trouble all the damn time. And he never knows why. Not really.]

[If Steve spilled about Bucky they are done professionally. She just studies him for a moment, making sure he's on the nose without meaning to be. The fewer people who know what will happen to James the better - and as of right now, she's the only one who knows the details. She wants it to stay that way.]

Let him win me over, gain some trust, find out everything he knows about the Tesseract, SHIELD, compromising information and security breaches.

Then use my deal to make sure he never gets as far as he did. [FU Tony she is not letting go of this lie, you have no proof. B|]

[What about personally huh Natasha? Tony's pretty sure Steve would wibble at her or be all kicked puppy if she ever tried to be pissed. And he's pretty damn sure even spy training wouldn't fully combat against that.]

... Tesseract? [Excuse him as he just narrows his eyes at you, Widow.] What the hell's the Tesseract?

[Yeah, see, Natasha? That's Tony just bursting out laughing] I'm still just waiting until you get your name blared over the network, Natasha. Where's your inmate, huh?

[Spy training teaches you to kick a puppy in the face, Steve can do her no harm. B|

And she's sighing on the inside, waiting for the laughter to ebb and the bitchiness to silence.]

You really don't think there's any way I could be a warden? [She isn't upset or frustrated, she's just curious; the worst he's ever seen her do is lie. She wonders if that's his biggest issue with her, or if it's stemming from somewhere else.]

The Tesseract is...as far as we know, an alien power source. It was found during the search for Captain Rogers. Apparently, SHIELD's going to find out it's a lot more than that.

[In Soviet Russia, puppy kicks you!

The laughter ends, but that bitchiness isn't going anywhere. She should know that by now. Or at least have the files on it. When Tony's pissed, he stays pissed for a while. Especially when it's something that hits pretty damn close to home.]

Considering I'm over here in "unfit for society land" yeah, fine. There's a chance you're a warden. The Admiral seems to be pretty determined to piss on all of us, so it might have happened.

[She's right. Tony has no real reason to hate her, besides the lying. And the lying he'd kind of come to expect, considering she's a spy working for the King of Spies.

He just doesn't want to be the only one of their merry band of misfits that's stuck with redemption stamped on his forehead.]

... Found when during the search for Rogers?

[Because if it was before sixty five, there is no way it's SHIELD property and not a result of a stark expedition.]

[In Soviet Russia, you run from that puppy because it will probably eat you before it plays with you. :|

And Natasha is choosing to just...let that discussion go, because either she tells him now or waits for the Admiral to announce it, whenever he gets around to giving her a warden. Either way, it's unpleasant. And though she might be all right with Tony knowing now, she's not so hot with the idea of all the people he'd let it slip to. So, sorry Tony. Secrecy reigns.]

1945.

[Oh God Tony LET IT GO maybe daddy donated it okay, gawd.]

[Which, honestly, he's come to expect from her. She's a spy. She deals in secrets. It's really just her conspiring with Captain America who is, surprise surprise, a root of some of the issues he had with his dad - you know, the whole, paid more attention to a frozen relic than his own son, measured Tony against a dead national icon from the second he was born yadda yadda yadda - that has him really ticked off.]

... Forty five. Uh, yeah. There's no way that's not mine.

He gave it to SHIELD, Tony. Ownership is very much ours.

[And because this whole thing is very frustrating to her - and because really, when does Natasha enjoy playing with others - she adds,] You can look it up if you ever get home.

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