bakerstreet | The Masquerade Meme

After the first cursory glance Natasha turned her eyes away from the mark. She would meet his eyes later after he’d already noticed her.

Taking a sip of her champagne, she smiled a little into the glass when Clint reached her side. The spy sort of things wasn’t his forté, he was better as back-up or her eye in the sky, but for these simple tasks he was sufficient. Turning to him, she gave him a look as if to size him up, to determine his worthiness. Downing the rest of the glass she set it aside and took his arm, letting him lead her to the dance floor. She knew he would pick a spot where Polanski would have a perfect vantage point. She may be wearing a mask, but her telltale fiery red hair should tip him off to her identity and the trap would be laid.

For as much as Clint liked improvising things, and didn't like planning too far ahead, and for that matter, didn't like getting involved for more than a quick strike, he was surprisingly good at plotting, and almost-theatrical blocking. He knew right where they needed to be for optimal line-of-sight and it only took to the first turn to get them there.

He spun her easily, it wasn't strictly necessary, but he knew that he wouldn't get another chance anytime soon and he was going to make the most of it. He leaned close then, voice just a murmur, "Laugh, I just told you something hilarious." They were already being watched, he knew, but the laugh would be better bait than anything else.

Natasha was a little surprised when Clint spun her around so smoothly. She knew he was out of his element here but he adapted easily, which was always one of his strengths. He was a solitary creature, more comfortable in shadows and stationed high above the world than dropped into the centre of it where all eyes were on him. All important eyes, at least.

She laughed as instructed, an action made easy by her amusement at his very suggestion. Very rarely did they get moments like this, moments of simple pleasure in the middle of a job. It was nice.

“Nice moves, Barton. You have been holding back on me,” Natasha spoke into his ear, her smile remaining. Looking over Clint’s shoulder, she caught sight of Polanski and caught his eye, holding his gaze for a moment. The trap was set and he seemed to be taking the bait.

"Have not." He replied, only barely managing to keep his smile in check, "You just never asked." A shrug, stepping easily into another turn, hand resting lightly against the small of her back, almost-but-not-quite proprietary, "You know, and it's never really come up. But if that's what you call 'holding back', then yeah, there's actually a lot that I'm holding back."

There was an easy amusement in his expression, they worked well together, and they always had, at least after their initial meeting, missions with her were more like playtime than anything, even when they got down to the nitty-gritty of their business.

Well, that much was true. They talked about a lot of things, but Clint’s dancing ability was a topic that had never seemed to have come up before. Of course that wasn’t the only thing they hadn’t talked about, as he proceeded to point out teasingly. Natasha leaned back slightly and raised her eyebrows at him, one corner of her lips curving up in the barest hint of a smile.

“You have certainly piqued my curiosity,” she said, sliding her hand over his shoulder to rest just at the base of his neck and bringing her a half a step closer.

In all honest there were probably a lot of things they were each holding back. Clint knew more about Natasha than anyone else, but more than that he knew her better than everyone else. That still didn’t mean he knew everything about her, not by a long shot. “Tell me something else about you that I don’t know.”

"Something you don't already know." He mused, finally giving an easy shrug as he stepped into the next turn, nudging her hand at his neck into a slightly more comfortable position as he did so, "I'm actually kind of scared of wolves."

It was his usual easy frankness, and really he was more than just 'kind of scared' of them, he'd had a bad experience with a pack of them once, and hadn't really gotten over it. It was also fairly typical of him to give her one of his weak points, because he trusted her not to use it against him. He knew a few of hers in turn, because he knew her better than most people, the same as she did him.

His answer wasn’t what she expected, and Natasha almost called him out for telling her something that was neither private nor meaningful, but one look in his eyes made it clear that it was meaningful to him. Her brows furrowed just slightly before she plastered another smile on her face, remembering that they had an audience.

“Sounds like there’s a story behind that,” she said, her tone not matching her expression at all. “I would like to hear it sometime.” It was an honest sentiment, she really was interested, though it went without saying that she wouldn’t push if he didn’t want to talk about it. Their whole relationship hinged around that fact.

The song was coming to an end and it would soon be time to carry on with the mission and let Clint slink back into the shadows where he belonged, forever watching and always having her back. Their dance might be almost over, but she would still have need of him tonight.

"Remind me sometime when we've got a couple hours to kill." Not that it was that long of a story to tell, but he might need a couple drinks in him first, "So, you know, later tonight if all goes well."

Because if everything went like it was supposed to with this job, they'd have almost three hours between finishing and getting extracted, which was usually time spent holed up in a low-end motel room licking their wounds, or being on edge and ready to bolt if retribution arrived before rescue, which had happened once or twice that he could remember.

He gave her another easy smile as the song ended, stepping away from her with a wink, catching her hand so that he could kiss the back of it before all but evaporating into the crowd, as he was good at doing, waiting on the ground just long enough to make sure the bait had been taken before moving into position for phase two.

If all goes well?

“If I were a superstitious person, I might have to threaten you for possibly jinxing us,” Natasha said, though her smile showed only amusement. The smile stayed as he took his leave and she watched him walk away, vanishing into the sea of masked faces as if he hadn’t been there at all.

A moment later Polanski was at her side.

She played her part well, coy but with a certain shift in her usual behaviour around him to let him know that tonight she would not be leaving him unsatisfied. Procuring them each a glass of champagne, she expertly slipped the drug into his before they toasted, her half lidded eyes and roaming hands making promises. She appeared to have already had a few drinks, and he didn’t seem to have any qualms with that. Not five minutes later he was leading her toward one of the back rooms. The drug took about twenty minutes to take effect, so she should have just enough time to get him comfortable for their little chat.

She didn’t bother to look around for Clint, she knew he would be watching. He just had to make sure nobody approached the room. Time was of the essence.

And if Clint were a superstitious person, he wouldn't have said it, but he wasn't. Not about jinxing himself, anyway, or her. He was in a few odd little ways, but nothing that necessarily interfered with his day-to-day life.

Besides, even if he'd been superstitious, he knew they could pull this off. He wouldn't say it was going to be a cakewalk, because nothing they got paired up for was, anymore. Nor was anything with as close a time-limit as they were working with here.

He'd easily shed his suit-jacket and mask, stashing both where he could easily throw them on again if necessary, but where they wouldn't interfere with his climb and his line of sight once he reached his new perch in a service catwalk where he could see the two corridors leading up to and past the room where Natasha was holding her interview.

Once inside the room, the door locked behind them, Natasha tried to avoid the roaming hands and lips of her mark. “I’m not that, easy,” she said, slipping out of his hold and giving him a pointed yet seductive look. “If you haven’t noticed, I’m a woman who likes to be in control. The question is, can you submit to being controlled?”

Polanski, for his part, seemed rather excited by the idea, so when she ordered him to lay on the bed, hands gripping the headboard, he did as he was told. Removing the sash from her dress and unhooking the few hooked that held it together, she let the long, cumbersome skirt fall to the floor. Joining him on the bed she straddled his hips and used the long sash to tie his hands to the headboard above him. She noted the glassy look in his eyes; the drugs were starting to take effect. Grinning wickedly at him, she slid her hands back behind her, gripping his legs as she leaned back, effectively pinning him down.

“Now, why don’t we start with you telling me everything you know about Michelson?”

It took Polanski a moment to process what she said, and when he did his eyes went wide and he tried to buck her off, but she dug the nails of one hand into his leg, her other shooting up to clap over his mouth.

“In case you haven’t noticed yet, you’ve been drugged. In about three minutes you’ll start to feel your toes go numb, then your legs, and it will continue to creep up your body, slowly, until you’re completely paralysed,” she leaned in close, her voice deadly cold. “I have the antidote, and if you tell me everything I ask I will give it to you and you can walk away with just a little muscle stiffness. If you don’t...”

She didn’t finish the threat, she didn’t need to. Pulling a small device out of the bodice of her dress, she hit a button that would record their conversation while simultaneously transmitting it to an identical device that Clint held. It was good to have a back-up, just in case. Now as long as her partner could buy her a good ten minutes they should be in the clear.

Clint had been hoping for a nice, quiet ten minutes, but of course it wasn't going to be that easy no matter how meticulously they'd planned it, because of course, of course Polanski's bodyguard was more attentive than the usual kind, and he'd not only noticed that Polanski was missing, but was making a bee-line for the room.

Clint cursed under his breath, shifting his weight and preparing for a good old-fashioned death from above, but what he said, easily and quietly into his earpiece was: "Nat, I know you're kind of busy right now, but I think our guy might be bugged. Personal security's already on the way, and he knows where he's going."

That was all he had time for before he had to deal with the bodyguard. Fighting in a corridor like this was never a good idea, too easy to draw attention, which was why Clint locked the bodyguard into a sleeper hold as quickly as possible, taking him down and just dragging him off out of easy line of sight, "Took care of him, but there might be more."

When Clint’s voice sounded over the comm link Natasha cursed under her breath in Russian. Why could these things never be easy?

“Will we still be able to blend back into the crowd and leave normally, or are we going to need an alternate escape route?” she asked Clint, giving Polanski an annoyed look when he clearly thought she was talking to him and started crying that he didn’t know and that he wouldn’t say anything and that his feet had already started going numb.

The drug she had given him wasn’t actually a paralytic. It was designed to make him disoriented, groggy, unable to think clear enough to fabricate a believable lie. Clamping his legs between her thighs, though, along with the grogginess was enough to give the illusion of paralysis.

“It’s working quicker than I thought,” she said, affecting concern. “You better talk quick.” Holding the recorder close to his lips to catch every utterance, she smiled slightly, a dangerous smile, when he started blabbering about everything she could possibly want to know.

"Unless he's got a cadre that knows what we look like, we should be fine." He replied, though he was already preparing himself to bolt if they had to, "Let me know when we're clear, I'll bring this one in, let them figure it out for themselves when they wake up."

He'd swung himself up easily to his chosen perch once more, keeping an eye on the corridor and the edge of the crowd beyond, where he could see them here and there, "Don't have to say anything until you're done." Since he knew that her talking to him would confuse their mark further, which was counterproductive.

Natasha heard Clint speaking in her ear, and while she silently acknowledged his words, her attention was focused on the information that was pouring from the mark’s lips. Some of it was confused and useless, but there was enough truth and importance to the rest of it that she felt confident they would have everything they needed. Client names, shipment schedules, he was giving it all up and only when he was reduced to a sobbing mess, pleading and claiming to have told her everything, did she sit back and nod.

“Thank you for your cooperation,” she said, pulling a small needle from her bodice. ‘The antidote’, Polanski though, looking at it in desperation, but as he wasn’t actually infected with anything an antidote wasn’t required. It was a sedative, and only a few seconds after she stabbed the needle into his neck he was out cold.

“We’re clear,” she said to Clint, checking Polanski’s pulse and satisfying herself that there had been no ill effects of either drug. Leaping up from the bed, she flipped the lock on the door and waited for Clint’s acknowledgement before pulling it open.

"Knock knock." Typical Clint, really, he would have said 'knock knock' even if his hands hadn't been full of bodyguard, just dragging the man into the room and bumping the door shut behind himself with a shoulder when he'd done so, leaving the hired muscle in a heap on the floor. He flashed Natasha a crooked smile, "Help me hoist him onto the bed? Just to give them something else to deal with first before trying to find us when they come to."

He kept talking while moving the unconscious bodyguard, "Our guy's got at least two other people on security detail, I got it narrowed down to five potentials, but didn't have a chance to pin who it is exactly, so we'll have to be careful getting out of here." A shrug as he pulled the screen that was wirelessly connected to the camera in his mask so that he could show her the snapshots, "These five. Three, maybe four of them are just civilians, at least one and probably two of them could be trouble."

Flipping the lock again once Clint was inside, Natasha grinned at his suggestion and helped him haul the other man up onto the bed, leaving the two in a rather compromising position. Once he was safely deposited, she turned her attention to the photographs. Four men, one woman, none of them dressed very showy. The men all wore black suits and masks as many of the male guests did, and the woman looked as if she had definitely dressed to blend in herself. Committing their masked faces to memory, Natasha nodded.

“So we blend back into the crowd, keeping a special eye out for these five,” she spoke as she retrieved her skirt from the floor and wrapped it back around her waist again. Dropping her eyes she worked the buttons to reattach it. “And try to leave as quickly as we can without looking suspicious. The sedative should last at least thirty minutes. Not sure about the brand you gave your guy.”

Fixing her mask back in place, Natasha smirked at Clint.

"That's the plan." He replied with a nod, scooping up his own mask and jacket from where they'd been left on the floor with moving the bodyguard, "And it probably won't last much longer than that, actually." He made sure his mask was snug before shrugging back into his jacket, buttoning it easily and tugging it straight before he offered her an arm, brow arching behind his mask, "You think we can get out of here without trouble?"

It was an honest question, really, and while there was a good chance that they could it was more a question of whether or not she wanted to. Sometimes a good brawl did them both some good and he knew it. Technically he was her handler, but only in official title, they were partners in crime as often as not, and that was how they liked it.

Tugging her elbow length gloves back from where they had slouched slightly down her arms, Natasha then reached up and straightened Clint’s bowtie before taking his arm.

“It is possible," she replied, but when she looked over at him her eyes told a different story. “But I wouldn’t bet money on it.”

She hadn’t had a good fight in a few weeks and all the pent up energy and aggression with no physical outlet was starting to get to her. The two of them could probably easily make it out of this place without incident and while that was their better option, the option that Fury would prefer and the one that would avoid any reprimands, Natasha wasn’t sure it was the one she wanted. She also had the feeling that Clint’s line of thinking was similar to her own; it usually was. Part of the reason they worked so well together.

Edited 2012-09-18 15:03 (UTC)

"Always a shame when things don't work out like they should." He replied, sighing a melodramatic sigh and shaking his head, "Job got done, sure, but we couldn't get out clean, we tried, but nobody warned us about the backup bodyguards." It wasn't exactly the same tone he'd use on the Director if they were questioned, but it was the wording that was going to go into the report at any rate.

He was smiling crookedly, leading her back down the stairs, "So how do you want to do this? Have another dance and wait to get noticed? Or just shake them all up and see who bites?" Waiting ran the risk of the two upstairs waking up, but was a higher chance that their backup bodyguards would make themselves known, while a few vague words or statements near enough to be overheard by their potentials ran the risk of the wrong people overhearing, but was faster.

Natasha’s own smile widened at Clint’s cover story and her eyes were practically dancing with mischief. They were definitely on the same page, and by the time they made it back to base they would have all the details of how their escape had gone bad down to a tee. “Such a shame,” she agreed solemnly.

Turning her attention back to the crowd as they descended the stairs, she picked the closest suspect to them from the crowd and tried to get a read on his body language. Their boss had been gone a while now so they should be looking a bit antsy, trying to find him among all the party guests.

“You know me, Barton,” Natasha replied to his question, looking up at him with a mostly concealed, secret smile. “I don’t have nearly the patience you do.” The anticipation of action was practically thrumming through her veins at this point, so the sooner the better as far as she was concerned. 

Clint, likewise, had already picked their five out in the crowd, looking for the same sort of behavior she was looking for, antsiness, concern, and it didn't take him long at all to pinpoint both of those, as well as a couple of glances their way, one with puzzlement and one with recognition.

He grinned, "Think we've got our guys." He said, just loud enough for her to pick up on the earpiece, even though they were still standing side by side, "Beefy arms, little black mask like he thinks he's Zorro, about ten o'clock, by the ice swans. Then there's the one who's about six-four, looks like a runner, on our two o'clock, headed this way. I'm not ruling out the woman either, she's got an eye on us, can't tell if it's professional curiosity or personal jealousy."

He did turn to her then, smiling again, brow arching behind his mask, "We going to take this outside?" Less chance of people getting caught in the crossfire, that way, but as far as he could tell, these guys would actually be worried about the collateral damage, unlike their usual foes.

Natasha followed Clint’s directions, noting ‘Zorro’ first who was looking their way and touching his ear suspiciously, as if activating a comm device of his own, then the runner who was weaving through the crowd toward them. Lastly she looked at the woman who was definitely giving them a look that was none to pleasant.

“Jealous of you or me?” the redhead asked, finally bringing her eyes back to Clint and returning his smile. “That would probably be for the best, but not out front. This party has their own security that we don’t need to get mixed up in this.”

The back terrace would be less public but there was sure to still be some guests milling about to take advantage of the quiet and the good weather. Sliding her hand down his arm to take Clint’s hand instead, not wanting to get separated in the crowd, she led him toward the kitchens, intending to use the service entrance.

Protests were made as they weaved their way through the kitchen staff but she paid them no mind, offering only a few curt words of explanation. They’d just made it to the outside door when the runner entered the kitchen.

"Jealous of me, obviously." Was his reply to the question, nodding at her assessment of the situation at hand, it amused him, usually, how often their opinions on things aligned.

He'd been about to suggest the terrace himself, or at least one of the 'backstage' areas when she was already leading him off towards the kitchen and he grinned. He would have kept up with her easily even without her hold of his hand, but he wasn't going to object to it either.

It didn't happen often, but sometimes during these chases real life did turn out just like the movies, and it seemed that today was their one in a million, because there was a bus cart of dirty dishes that he sent skidding towards their pursuer with a kick. He slammed the kitchen door closed behind them again, grinning at the few people on the terrace who'd turned their way, "Sorry to do this folks, but going to have to ask you to head back out front, or back into the ballroom, got a minor gas leak in the kitchen, won't be any problem for the rest of the party, just need to clear out the area here until we get it patched."

Natasha grinned at his reply but said nothing in return; they had more important matters to attend to at the moment.

The bus cart was a nice touch, and it would slow down their pursuer just long enough for them to hopefully clear the the terrace of innocent bystanders. Clint had that part covered too, a smooth story rolling off his lips only seconds after the door had closed behind them. Of course the partygoers groaned and complained, but they listened well enough, none of them wanting to put themselves in harm’s way of any kind. One particular guest was very quick to toss his cigarette away with a very unmanly squeal, so clearly the lie was believed.

Even as they were still disappearing around the corner Natasha was already removing her shoes and unfastening the heavy skirt again. The runner should have already been through the door by now, so she could only assume that he had waited for Zorro to catch up. Two against two should have seemed like fair odds, but she almost felt sorry for the men. She could take out twice as many just on her own. “I think he’s waiting for company. Which one do you want?”

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