[Bad username or site: natalie @ rushman]
[ new places, new faces — sure, but the rules of the game are the same. find out what they know, find out what they want, and do it before they find out the same about you. an alias is just second nature at this point. ]

I consider myself well-traveled, but this is something else.
Anybody else feeling wildly out of place?

[ natalie is eager, friendly, experienced but not overly confident. for her, admitting she's feeling self-conscious is a good way to make friends. for natasha, admitting a false weakness is a good way to suss out someone else's real ones. ]

[ in her dreams, her hair is always the same: thick, red, long; a ballerina's cut, straight across at the ends, with the soft tousling that comes from hours tightly wrapped in a topknot shortly after washing. in her dreams, her hands are often dirty — sometimes from blood spilt, once from ink after she'd signed the accords, and every so often her palms are smeared with dirt, as if she's come in from digging ever deeper holes (or graves).

in this dream, natasha wakes to the knowledge that she's dreaming. it's not entirely unfamiliar — she's had lucid dreams before, the result of too many loops of kgb brainwashing or interrogation (or both). but this isn't like dreaming of drowning or riding a never-ending train. this is real in a way that twists at something deep in her gut, an all too prominent sensation of impending doom straightening her spine.

it's motivation to act, to seize control (of the means of production), to do something about this disaster before it does something about her.

she finds herself near the base of a glittering skyscraper, impossibly clean even among the dark clouds that seem to have settled over the city, a small collection of gear set at her feet. where did she get it? some, much like her black tactical suit, seems to have come with the dream itself — a grappling hook gun, a set of expandable batons, an assortment of knives in varying shapes and sizes — while others feel impossibly futuristic.

at the sight of company (expected or not), her face tips up, features obscured by the shadow of their body. ]

Are you coming, or keeping watch?

[ tentatively playing this mid-endgame (during the five year gap), but open to other canon points as well! as a courtesy to those who haven't seen it yet, please mark for spoilers. please also feel free to let me know via pm if there are any subjects you'd prefer i not touch on! ]