bakerstreet | The Masquerade Meme

The Masquerade Meme

The { MASQUERADE } Meme

Masquerade
Paper faces on parade
Masquerade

It's a splendid night for a party!

You received an invitation to a masquerade party and after wondering who exactly throws these things anymore outside of people in Italy and the strange people in that Vanilla Sky movie, you've decided to attend! Decked out in your best (or maybe not so best - it may have been last minute, after all), you descend on the party and prepare to make it a night to remember.

Is it your friend's annual Halloween party with a twist? Perhaps you're an international spy, trying to find out the best way to steal the Crown Jewels. Maybe this is part of Spirit Week at your high school and you really wish that your classmates would be more creative next time.

Elaborate Venetian, playful animals, dazzling supernatural creatures - the night is young. Have fun.

:::

This is not a RNG meme. Your characters' role and situation is entirely up to you. "But how do you play?" you might ask. It's as simple as 1, 2, 3!

1.) Post with your character. In the subject line, type of your character's name and canon. If you'd like, in the comment section, you can describe what mask/costume your character is wearing.
2.) Tag around! This is a party after all, and your character can't find any of their usual crew behind their masks (or maybe they can and need to tease them mercilessly for their choice of costume).
3.) Profit!

First person to drop the chandelier buys drinks for everyone!

stolen from

dammithardison here

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He nodded, "They wouldn't throw us at anything we couldn't take down. Just hope we get an actual vacation after this. Hell, this is, what are we up to now? Quadruple duty?" Which was to say that he'd been running hard for too long, and while he trusted SHIELD not to get them killed, he was already starting to feel run down.

Of course, if they did get any actual downtime, he'd be complaining about being bored within the first 24 hours, which was probably part of why they only rarely got any. SHIELD didn't like it when Clint got bored, because it made him inventive.

(Totally is! And black cherry soda in a wineglass makes it automatically super-fancy)

Bringing her hand back to her pillow, Natasha let her eyes close for a moment and relaxed. “Mmm, a week somewhere tropical is sounding very nice right about now.”

She enjoyed her job, the action and the adrenaline rush, but even the Black Widow needed a break every once in a while. She knew Fury would never push them past their limits to the point that they were being endangered, but sometimes she wondered if he overestimated them. They were his top team, but they needed rest just like everyone else if they wanted to stay that way.

“Hot sand, good surf, nobody that knows us for miles...” With her eyes still closed she smiled at the mental image. “I know you think you would get bored, but I promise I would find ways to keep you entertained.”

((Ha! nice. and here I don’t even have real wine glasses for my wine))

There was a crooked little smile at the first, "Lounge chair, big umbrella, drink with a fancy toothpick thing in it." He shook his head then, "I'd definitely be bored. Hate the beach." Which was funny, since he didn't mind the ocean, or sailing, just the actual beach itself.

He shook his head, "I wouldn't do well in the wilderness, either, for that matter, tundra, cabin in the middle of nowhere, no thanks." Mostly he just wanted some down time at home, he liked New York, he liked most big cities, for that matter, he was good at blending in most places, if he could just pretend to be a regular schmuck for a few days to re-set himself he'd be fine.

(We do! But only because they were a housewarming present, and mostly we use them for soda or juice or chocolate milk. We drink our booze out of juice glasses.)

Natasha opened her eyes long enough to roll them at Clint. “You do know there are more things to do in such a location than just lay on the beach and drink, right?” she said. One could fill a day there with scuba diving, parasailing, or even just exploring off the resort. It was just that most people went to resorts to do as little as possible, which tended to boil down to, yes, laying on the beach and drinking.

She fixed her gaze on him again.

“No beach, no hiking, no camping... just what would you do with a week off, Agent Barton?”

((heee, I love it. Oh, and I’ve been meaning to ask, do you use plurk?))

"Get lost in a big city somewhere." The answer was an easy one, "Like, really lost, just the clothes on my back and enough money for a couple days. Urban survival." He'd always been good at it, the few times they'd actually done urban survival missions. Usually came out better than when he went in.

"Who knows, maybe if somebody hints at an impending psychological break we'll get a day or two to recoup." He wasn't planning on doing so, of course, because he didn't want to deal with the paperwork or the psych evaluations that kind of suggestion would cause.

(I do, actually! I keep meaning to add it to my journals the same as my AIM, but I keep forgetting. I'm DryadGurrl over there.)

Leave it to Clint to make a week off sound like work. He was always challenging himself, always pushing himself to the limit. It was both admirable and worrying. “I know what I’m doing for your birthday,” she joked. Though it would be tempting to kidnap him and drop him in some city that she knew he had never been to before. She had no doubts he would handle it perfectly in stride and enjoy himself while doing so.

“If either of us were to claim a psychological break on this mission we would never hear the end of it. Nobody would believe us.” It was true, this mission had been a cake walk compared to some of the others they had done. They had both certainly been through worse mental torture.

((Ooh, I think I’ve seen you around, we must have a friend in common. I’m sneakronicity. Do you mind if I add you?))

"Yeah, good point." He sighed, shaking his head and settling just a little further, mostly because he knew there wasn't a lot of time left to stay settled, and despite his claims of vigilance (and the mindset that went with it) he was intent on making the most of that time, "Though I don't know, psychological break due to boredom might work."

There was another small smile, brow arching, "And what are you going to get me? A map? Or a real-life game of 'find the airport'?" It was a game that Clint wasn't much good at, unless it was a real-life version.

Seeing him settle deeper into the comfort of the bed, Natasha felt herself relax further as well. She was still alert and could be up and ready the second they heard anything strange, but it was nice to have this moment to just... be.

“I do hope you are not talking about your present company. I may be insulted,” she said, turning her face into the pillow a little more. When it came to their jobs she knew she certainly had the more exciting one. So much of what Clint did was watch and wait, which was something Natasha had never been good at. His job was definitely more boring in her mind.

“I can’t very well tell you what I plan to get you, it has to be a surprise,” she said with a grin. Maybe she should get them both a vacation and merely accompany him while he tried to figure anything out. It would be amusing... at least for a while. She doubted that feeling would last.

There was a crooked little smile, likely due both to the insistence on his birthday present being a surprise and also the thought that she could ever consider a job together 'boring'.

Sure, he did a lot of sitting and watching, but that's what he was good at, and he didn't mind it, if anything he liked it better than the groundwork. Not that he minded getting his hands dirty now and again, "Present company excluded." He finally opened one eye again, smile spreading, "You've got a standing exclusion from any sweeping generalization I make."

Natasha rolled over to her stomach, hugging the pillow under her head and turning her head to the side so she could still look at her partner. She really did prefer her missions with him to any other, but then she preferred spending time with him over anyone else as well. He had shown her mercy when she had most needed it and kindness when she hadn’t felt she deserved it. She trusted him and cared about him more than anyone else in the world, the one person who had always believed in her, believed she was worth saving.

“Very good answer, Barton,” she said, smiling back at him.

"What can I say?" He said with an easy, rolling shrug, "I learned from the best." He did lean up on an elbow then, mostly just to see the clock over her shoulder, sighing, "We've got about a half hour before the drill starts, might as well make sure we're ready for it."

Which in his case was going to mean making sure that the top of his luggage was open so that he could snag his bow as necessary.

Burying her face in the pillow at the mention of getting up, Natasha stayed like that for a moment. One of her guns was already loaded and ready to go, she just had to load the other and hide them in her coat that she planned to throw on over her pajamas and she would be ready to go.

Finally pushing herself up to sit, she stretched her arms up over her head. As much as she was enjoying their quiet moment it would be nice to get this mission official over with.

“Do you think they will be brazen enough to do anything if we stay with the crowd? Or should we separate from it as early as possible?” she queried.

He shrugged, rolling his shoulders more than anything, limbering up as he pushed himself to his feet, "Don't know. I mean, we don't even know for sure if they're going to try anything, right? SHIELD just figured the easiest way to get us out unnoticed was with everybody milling about during a fire drill."

He sighed, scrubbing a hand through his hair, "Which probably means they'll have a van waiting at whatever the emergency gathering point is. Across the street and up a block, right? The open-air parking lot?"

True, they couldn’t be sure, and it was always better to err on the side of caution. There was a strong chance that nobody would even know to look for them here, or if they did that they wouldn’t want to cause a scene among all the people. It was possible they could finish this yet with no more risk to anyone.

Possible, but Natasha wasn’t about to call it probable.

“Yes, there should be someone waiting for us there,” she replied, finally crawling out of bed. Padding across the floor in her bare feet, she moved some of her luggage aside and was grateful to find a pair of runners so that she wouldn’t have to put those god awful heels back on.

"Okay." He made a quick sweep of the room, though it wasn't as if they'd unpacked anything that they might leave behind. Getting dressed took less time than re-arranging his luggage so that he could get at his bow in a hurry if he had to, whoever had packed it in the first place had gotten it almost right, but he was making doubly sure.

He was also amused that while their clothes looked like civilian wear they were made of the same stuff that his uniform was, not exactly bulletproof, but definitely stab-resistant as well as being lightweight, flexible, and surprisingly comfortable.

"Any bets on how many times we're going to hear 'but I'm a paying customer'? I'm guessing somewhere around thirty."

Natasha considered just throwing her coat on as if she had been awoken from sleep like everyone else, but seeing Clint change she followed his lead. In all the commotion who would be paying attention to what kind of trousers she was wearing under her coat?

Swapping out the pajamas for something a little more protective, she packed up the rest of her bag and set the loaded guns on top with her coat.

“That depends, are we counting the phrase in total or how many different individuals say it?” she replied, sitting in one of the chairs to pull on a pair of socks and the sneakers.

"Individually." He clarified, finally getting his luggage the way he wanted it, "In total is going to be more, at least half again, probably twice as many." A pause then, adding: "And kids repeating it don't count, kids are worse than parrots."

Of course, it might be a good idea to ask how he knew, sometime, when they weren't getting ready to play disgruntled tourists.

“Now you’re just making things complicated,” she replied when he discounted the children. Pausing a moment, she considered the layout of their floor and how many rooms it held, then multiplied by the number of floors and made a guess at how many rooms would be occupied at this time of year in this area. Of course not all of them would be vocal about their displeasure either.

“I will give them the benefit of the doubt and say twenty,” Natasha replied after a moment’s contemplation. Of the disgruntled ones only one of each party was likely to speak for them all, and that was assuming they had someone to speak to. “Are we putting any stakes on this bet to make it interesting?”

"Well that depends." He said, the crooked smile having appeared once more, he couldn't help it, even despite the lack of information they were very much in their element here, this was the kind of thing they excelled at, even tired, "What's your offer?"

He shrugged one shoulder, "You're the one who suggested it, which says to me you at least have some idea of what you want to get out of me."

Natasha couldn’t help but grin back. “I can think of a few things,” she teased, raising her eyebrows suggestively. “But let’s start with dinner, on you, and not at some fast food place.”

Oh, but that wasn’t really what she had in mind. That was just something to make him think he’d be getting off easy if he lost. She had something much better in mind.

“Oh, and paperwork.” Now she gave him her most direct, to the point expression. “If I win you will write up the field report and all the other required paperwork for this mission so I won’t have to do anything but read and sign it.”

His brow arched, shifting from foot to foot for a moment, as if getting ready to bolt, not that he thought they'd actually need to, but it was always good to be ready for any eventuality, "Are you sure you want to give me that kind of power?" Of course, she had said that she'd be reading the report before she signed it, but that didn't mean he couldn't get creative with it anyway.

Natasha glared back at Clint as if she could read his mind and knew what he was thinking of doing with the report. “I’m sure I would rather avoid writing it,” she said. After all, she had forgone sleep while he had managed to catch a few hours. All she wanted to do when they got back to base was get through the debriefing and go to bed.

“Don’t even think about writing anything I won’t approve of just to get out of this in the future. You know I can and will hurt you.” She didn’t need to say it in a threatening tone as he would know it was a fact. It would be dangerous to refute such a statement.

"C'mon, you know me better than that." Which was to say, she knew him exactly that well. He checked his watch then before cocking his head almost like a dog hearing a car in the driveway, nodding as the alarms started going off, "Give it a minute, got to wait for the hallway to fill up a little."

After all: they were prepared, most people wouldn't be, at least not to the same extent.

Natasha just gave him a knowing look and pointed her finger at him in warning. Lucky for him the alarms chose that time to start sounding. Nodding at his words she pulled on her coat and made sure her guns were handy in the pockets. Sufficiently equipped, she rubbed her hands over her hair a bit vigorously to give it a more slept on look before turning to the door and spying out through the peephole as people started to pass by.

“You didn’t say what you wanted if you were to win,” she said, listening as the commotion outside got louder as more people filled the hallway.

He snorted, shaking his head, "Let's be honest, do either of us really think that I'm going to win this?" He shrugged then, "But on the off-chance that I do, dinner, on me, and then down to the shooting range. Only you wear a dress."

A nod to the door followed, "Let's go, better to get lost in the crowd before hotel staff comes to herd us out."

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